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PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


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BT  101  . H33  1896  v.2 
Harris,  Samuel,  1814-1899. 
God 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/godcreatorlordof02harr 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


The  Philosophic  Basis  of  Theism.  An 

examination  of  the  Personality  of  Man,  to 
ascertain  his  capacity  to  know  and  serve 
God,  and  the  validity  of  the  principle  un¬ 
derlying  the  defence  of  Theism.  Svo,  $3.50. 
The  Self  Revelation  of  God.  Svo,  $3.50. 


GOD 


THE  CREATOR  AND  LORD  OF  ALL 


f 


BY 

/ 

SAMUEL  HARRIS,  D.D.,  LL.D. 


PROFESSOR  OF  SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  IN  YALE  UNIVERSITY 


Volume  II. 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER’S  SONS 

i  896 

[All  rights  reserved ] 


Copyright,  1896, 

By  Charles  Scribner’s  Sons. 


SSnitocrsttg  ^rcss: 

John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


PART  III  —  ( Continued ) 

PAGES 

GOD  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENTIAL 

GOVERNMENT . 1-52 

CHAPTER  XVII 

god’s  providential  government  in  relation  to  redemption 

I.  Significance  of  the  doctrine  in  this  relation.  II.  Its  reasonableness. 

III.  The  Ideal  and  the  Real . 1-31 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE  .......  32-52 

PART  IV 

GOD  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT  53-551 

CHAPTER  XIX 

MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY 

I.  Moral  character  in  the  will.  II.  Character  in  its  primary  meaning. 

III.  Character  in  its  secondary  meaning.  IV.  Beginning  of  moral 
character.  V.  Development  of  character.  VI.  Natural  and  moral 
abilitY . 53-mo 


VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 

PAGES 

I.  The  law  of  love  :  the  requirement  of  the  law  expressed  in  a  principle, 
of  which  all  commandments  of  specific  duties  are  aspects  and  applica¬ 
tions.  II.  Classification  of  ethical  theories.  III.  The  three  theories 
of  the  first  class.  IV.  The  second  class  :  Christian  ethics,  the  real 
principle  of  the  law  as  declared  by  Christ . 141-192 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  ESSENTIAL  AND  DISTINCTIVE  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIN 

I.  Sin  the  choice  of  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service. 

II.  Sin  in  various  aspects  mistaken  for  the  seminal  principle  .  193-213 


CHAPTER  XXII 

LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING,  SELF-DENYING,  AND  SELF-DEVELOPING 

I.  The  self-renunciation  of  love.  II.  Self-denial  distinguished  from  the 
self-renunciation  of  love.  III.  Self-development  by  self-renuncia¬ 
tion:  The  secret  of  Jesus.  IV.  Love  disinterested.  V.  Individua¬ 
tion  and  co-operation . 214-260 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE  LAW  OF  LOVE  AND  RULES  OF  DUTY 

I.  Love  required  by  law.  II.  Rules  of  duty.  III.  Private  judgment. 

IV.  Development  and  education  of  conscience . 261-285 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

LOVE  IN  ITS  TWO  ASPECTS  AS  BENEVOLENCE  AND  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

I.  Righteousness.  II.  Benevolence.  III.  Unity  of  love  in  its  two 
asPects . 286-309 


CHAPTER  XXV 


LOVE  MANIFESTED  IN  TRUST  AND  SERVICE 

I.  Love  manifested  in  acts  of  trust.  II.  Love  manifested  in  acts  of 
service.  III.  Unity  of  love  manifested  in  trust  and  service  .  310-334 


CONTENTS 


Vll 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  HIS  RELATION  TO  GOD 

PAGES 

I.  Duty  to  God.  II.  Duty  to  man  in  his  relation  to  God  .  .  .  335-383 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 

I.  Christian  service  in  secular  business.  II.  Reciprocal  service  and 
gratuitous.  III.  Practical  importance  of  the  Christian  conception  of 
business.  IV.  Christian  service  in  domestic  and  social  relations. 

V.  Service  designed  to  exert  a  directly  religious  influence.  VI.  Duties 
to  the  good  and  to  the  bad.  VII.  Duties  to  one’s  self  and  to  one’s 
own . 384-441 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 

I.  Definition  of  punishment.  II.  Necessity  of  punishment.  III.  The 
penalty.  IV.  Inferences  and  explanations . 442-518 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

THE  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT 

I.  The  primary  ground  or  origin  of  civil  government.  II.  The  function 
of  government.  III.  The  form  of  government.  IV.  The  rights  of 
man . 5  r9~ 551 


Index 


555-576 


CHAPTER  XVII 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT  IN  RELATION  TO  REDEMPTION 

The  Bible  teaches  that  all  who  are  justified  and  finally  saved 
from  sin  and  condemnation  are  eternally  chosen  by  God,  accord¬ 
ing  to  his  foreknowledge,  unto  obedience  and  salvation  through 
Christ  in  sanctification  of  the  Spirit  and  belief  of  the  truth.  This 
is  the  doctrine  of  election  as  set  forth  in  the  Bible.1 

In  this  chapter  we  must  ascertain  the  true  significance  and  the 
reasonableness  of  the  doctrine. 

I.  Significance  of  the  Doctrine.  —  In  ascertaining  this 
significance  we  must  recur  to  definitions  already  given.  God’s 
providential  government  and  his  providential  purpose  refer  to  the 
same  reality.  The  former  is  his  action  in  time  realizing  his 
archetypal  idea  of  the  universe  so  far  as  that  action  is  the  ground, 
immediate  or  remote,  of  the  actuality  of  events.  The  latter  is 
his  purpose  in  eternity  to  realize  this  archetype  by  his  action  in 
time,  with  th*e  knowledge  of  all  that  will  come  to  pass  as  the 
result,  immediate  or  remote,  of  his  thus  acting.  Election  is 
God’s  eternal  purpose  in  respect  to  the  redemption  of  men  from 
sin.  Therefore,  in  ascertaining  the  significance  of  God’s  election 
of  sinners  to  obedience  and  salvation  through  Christ,  we  have 
simply  to  ascertain  on  what  action  of  God  the  redemption  of  any 
sinner  from  sin  essentially  depends. 

1  2  Thess.  ii.  13 ;  1  Pet.  i.  1,2;  see  also  Matth.  xx.  16  ;  John  vi.  37  ;  xv.  16, 
19;  xvii.  2,  9;  Acts  xiii.  48;  xxii.  14;  Rom.  viii.  28-30;  1  Cor.  i.  27,  28; 
Eph.  i.  4-1 1  ;  iii.  10,  11  ;  1  Thess.  i.  4 ;  v.  9;  those  who  live  in  Christian 
love  are  frequently  called  God’s  elect  ;  Matth.  xxiv.  24,  31  ;  Mark  xiii.  20; 
Luke  xviii.  7  ;  Acts  ix.  15;  Rom.  viii.  33;  xvi.  13;  Col.  iii.  12;  2  Tim.  ii.  10; 
Tit.  i.  1  ;  1  Pet.  ii.  9;  v.  13;  2  John  i.  13 ;  Rev.  xvii.  14. 

VOL.  11.  —  1 


2 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


1.  God’s  election  of  sinners  to  obedience  and  salvation  has  sig¬ 
nificance  in  the  fact  that  the  redemption  of  any  person  from  sin 
depends  on  God  in  the  generic  sense  in  which  everything 
depends  on  him  as  the  creator,  and  as  determining  the 
constitution  of  all  created  beings  and  the  circumstances  and 
conditions  under  which  they  severally  exist. 

2.  God’s  election  has  a  higher  significance  in  the  fact,  already 
noticed,  that  God’s  purpose  of  sin  is  negative,  a  purpose  not  to 
do  otherwise  than  he  does  to  prevent  it  or  to  reclaim  from  it ; 
while  his  purpose  of  holiness  is  positive,  a  purpose  to  do  all  that 
perfect  wisdom  and  love  permit  or  require  to  bring  all  persons  to 
live  the  life  of  universal  love.  Here  is  a  more  specific  sense  in 
which  the  redemption  of  the.  sinner  depends  on  the  action  of 
God. 

3.  The  election  has  a  still  higher  significance  in  the  fact  that 
redemption,  considered  in  its  unity  and  continuity  as  a  whole,  is  the 
work  of  God,  self-moved  by  his  own  love,  in  the  exercise  of  his 
own  prevenient  grace,  seeking  men  to  redeem  them  from  sin  and 
condemnation  antecedent  to  any  action  of  sinful  men  seeking  God. 
It  is  being  done  in  fulfilment  of  God’s  eternal  purpose  to  realize 
in  the  universe  the  archetypal  ideal  of  his  own  wisdom,  being 
moved  thereto  by  his  love.  The  revelation  made  throughout  the 
Biblical  history  is  that  it  is  God  who  first  seeks  man,  not  man  who 
must  first  seek  God  and  propitiate  him.  This  is  distinctive  of 
Christianity  and  is  the  glad  tidings  of  the  gospel.  The  love  which 
God  reveals  in  redeeming  men  from  sin  is  eternal,  as  strong  before 
man  existed  as  afterwards,  moving  God  to  create  and  evolve  the 
universe,  and  glowing  unchanged  on  every  creature  as  it  comes 
into  being. 

This  is  exemplified  in  the  whole  history  of  redemption.  After 
Adam  and  Eve  had  sinned,  it  was  not  they  who  sought  God. 
They  fled  from  him.  It  was  God  who  in  his  prevenient  grace 
sought  them,  called  them  back  to  himself,  and  while  pronouncing 
their  inevitable  condemnation  and  punishment,  received  them 
again,  penitent  it  must  be  supposed,  as  his  worshipers.  This  is 
the  evident  representation  of  the  narrative ;  for  they  and  their 
sons  were  accepted  worshipers  of  God,  except  Cain  and  such  as 
he,  who  wilfully  forsook  God  and  lived  in  wickedness.  And  here, 
immediately  after  man’s  first  sin,  was  the  beginning  of  God’s 
action  in  human  history  seeking  men  to  redeem  them  from  sin, 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  3 


while  they  were  alienating  themselves  from  him.  And  so  it 
continued.  It  was  not  Abraham  who  came  out  from  among  the 
heathen  to  seek  God,  but  God  who  sought  Abraham  among  the 
heathen  and  called  him  to  come  out.  And  because  Abraham 
trusted  and  obeyed  he  obtained  God’s  favor.  In  all  the  history 
of  Israel,  it  is  God  who  first  seeks  Israel,  delivering  them  from 
Egypt,  recalling  them  from  their  backslidings  to  his  service,  for¬ 
giving  them  until  seventy  times  seven.  This  is  the  point  of  Paul’s 
argument  in  the  ninth,  tenth,  and  eleventh  chapters  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans.  He  is  not  discussing  the  personal  election  of 
individuals.  He  is  reasoning  against  Jews  who  expected  the 
kingdom  of  the  Messiah  to  be  the  Jewish  state  with  universal 
dominion  and  the  perpetuation  everywhere  of  the  Jewish  ecclesi¬ 
astical  polity  and  its  forms  of  worship.  He  shows  that  from  the 
beginning  of  their  history  it  was  not  Israel  that  chose  and  sought 
God,  but  God  who  chose  and  sought  Israel.  He  recognizes  the 
fact  that  Israel  was  chosen  by  God  as  the  special  medium  of  his 
revelation  of  himself  in  his  work  of  redemption  and  the  establish¬ 
ment  of  his  kingdom  in  its  preparatory  stages.  He  justifies  the 
rejection  of  them  as  a  people  from  this  peculiar  position  and 
office,  because  the  Jews  had  rejected  their  promised  Messiah 
when  he  came.  But  Paul  does  not  present  this  as  the  only 
justification  of  their  rejection.  To  rest  it  on  this  alone  would 
have  implied  that  if  the  Jews  had  not  rejected  Christ  their 
political  dominion  and  ecclesiastical  polity  would  have  been 
perpetuated  and  made  universal  under  the  Messiah’s  reign. 
In  addition  to  this,  Paul  shows  that  the  Jewish  theocracy  was 
intended  as  only  a  preparatory  stage  in  the  establishment  and 
advancement  of  the  Messiah’s  kingdom ;  that  the  Old  Testament 
itself  recognizes  the  spiritual  kingdom,  within  the  political  and 
ecclesiastical  organization,  distinguished  by  “  the  righteousness 
which  is  of  faith ;  ”  “  they  are  not  all  Israel  who  are  of  Israel ;  ” 
and  he  cites  as  an  example  the  seven  thousand  men  in  Elijah’s 
day  who  had  not  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal.  He  further  shows  that 
the  Old  Testament  declares  that  the  kingdom  of  God  as  it  had 
existed  under  the  Jewish  theocracy  is  to  pass  at  the  coming  of  the 
Messiah  into  his  universal  spiritual  kingdom  into  which  Gentiles 
are  to  be  called  on  equality  with  the  Jews;  and  that  this  is 
accordant  with  the  original  and  essential  idea  of  the  kingdom. 
And  he  proceeds  to  show  that  by  this  passing  away  of  Judaism 


4 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


and  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles,  God  is  to  advance  his  kingdom 
to  the  realization  of  his  archetypal  ideal  of  it  as  a  universal 
kingdom  in  the  conversion  to  Christ  and  the  gathering  into  his 
kingdom  both  of  Gentiles  and  Jews.  “  If  their  fall  is  the  riches 
of  the  world  and  their  loss  the  riches  of  the  Gentiles,  how  much 
more  their  fulness.  ...  A  hardening  in  part  hath  befallen  Israel 
until  the  fulness  of  the  Gentiles  be  come  in ;  and  so  all  Israel 
shall  be  saved  ”  (Rom.  xi.  12,  25,  26). 

And  when  God  came  to  men  in  Christ  it  was  not  because  men 
sought  him,  turning  from  their  sin,  but  it  was  God  in  his  free  and 
sovereign  grace  coming  to  men  in  their  sin  to  save  them  from  it. 

And  not  only  is  this  so,  but  men  could  not  even  have  had  any 
knowledge  of  God,  unless  God  first  by  his  own  action  had  in  some 
way  revealed  himself  to  them. 

This  priority  of  divine  grace  is  always  recognized  by  the 
prophets,  by  the  apostles  and  by  Christ.  It  is  the  shepherd  who 
is  represented  as  going  out  on  the  mountains  to  seek  the  sheep, 
not  the  sheep  that  seeks  the  shepherd  ;  for  it  had  wandered  away. 
The  prodigal  did  nothing  to  awaken  compassion  in  his  father’s 
heart.  He  simply  cast  himself  on  the  fatherly  love  which  had 
yearned  for  his  return  during  all  his  course  of  folly  and  of  sin. 
So  our  Lord  says  :  “  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  only 
begotten  son.”  John  declares  :  “  Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved 
God,  but  that  he  loved  us.  .  .  .  We  love  him  because  he  first  loved 
us.”  And  Paul  says  :  “  God  commendeth  his  own  love  toward  us, 
in  that  while  we  were  yet  sinners  Christ  died  for  us.”  1  No  man 
by  any  action  of  his  own  can  get  the  start  of  God’s  love  to  him. 
God  in  his  grace  revealed  in  Christ  is  compared  to  the  light 
of  the  sun,  pouring  itself  into  every  opening,  restrained  only 
by  opaque  bodies  which  obstruct  it,  and  most  of  all  by  the  world 
itself  when  it  rolls  its  bulk  between  us  and  the  sun  and  shrouds 
us  in  night.  Unless  God  were  already  graciously  disposed,  the 
sinner  by  his  own  action  could  no  more  make  him  gracious  than 
he  could  kindle  sunbeams  in  the  sun. 

The  significance  of  God’s  election,  as  set  forth  in  the  Bible, 
has  its  foundation  in  the  fact  that  the  work  of  redemption  in  its 
unity  and  continuity  as  a  whole  is  the  work  of  God  ;  and  that 
he  is  self- moved  thereto  by  his  own  eternal  and  unchanging 


1  Luke  xv.  4-32 )  John  iii.  16;  1  John  iv.  10,  19;  Rom.  v.  5—1 1. 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  5 

love  and  guided  therein  by  kis  own  perfect  wisdom.  He  is  not 
moved  thereto  by  any  antecedent  action  of  man  seeking  God’s 
grace.1  In  this  sense  his  grace  to  men  is  sovereign  grace. 

4.  The  scriptural  doctrine  of  election  has  its  highest  signifi¬ 
cance  in  the  fact  that  every  sinner,  who  is  saved,  is  renewed  or 
regenerated  by  God  in  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  exercise  of  God’s 
prevenient  grace.  The  work  of  redemption  in  its  personal  appli¬ 
cation  to  individuals  is  the  work  of  God,  of  his  own  self-moved 
love  seeking  man  to  turn  him  from  sin  to  God  by  the  offers, 
influences,  and  agencies  of  redemption,  antecedent  to  and  inde¬ 
pendent  of  any  action  of  man  seeking  God’s  redeeming  grace,  — 

grace,  that  finds  her  way. 

The  speediest  of  thy  winged  messengers, 

To  visit  all  thy  creatures,  and  to  all 

Comes  unprevented,  unimplored,  unsought.  —  Milton. 

The  Holy  Spirit  with  his  illuminating  and  quickening  influ¬ 
ences  does  not  come  to  a  man  because  the  man  has  already 
accepted  Christ  and  repel  ited  of  his  sins ;  but  he  comes  to  the 
sinner  in  his  sins  to  convince  him  of  sin  and  quicken  him  to 
accept  Christ  and  forsake  sin.  His  gracious  coming  with  the 
influences  of  redemption  is  not  conditioned  on  any  previous  act 
of  the  sinner  seeking  God.  And  the  Bible  teaches  that  the 
Christian  life  and  its  growth  in  sanctification  is  by  faith ;  and  so 
is  a  continuous  recognition  of  dependence  on  God’s  Spirit  dwel¬ 
ling  and  working  within  the  soul.  Through  the  whole  Christian 
life  it  is  God  who  quickens  and  leads,  the  man  who  is  quickened 
and  follows.  Thus  the  regeneration  and  sanctification  of  the 
man  depend  for  their  actuality  on  the  action  of  God.  Therefore 
they  come  under  the  providential  government  of  God  and  are 
included  in  his  providential  purpose. 

Here,  then,  is  a  real  and  important  significance  in  the  scriptu¬ 
ral  doctrine  of  election.  The  difficulty,  if  there  is  any,  is  not 
in  God’s  election,  but  in  the  fact  that  God’s  Spirit  quickens  men 
to  newness  of  life  and  new  obedience  and  that  the  entire 
Christian  life  is  by  faith  in  God’s  ever  prevenient  grace.  When 
we  think  of  God’s  Spirit  influencing  a  sinner  to  turn  to  Christ 
in  repentance  we  call  it  regeneration.  When  we  consider  this 
agency  of  God  in  any  man  as  eternally  purposed  we  call  it 


1  Ephesians  ii.  8-10. 


6 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


election.  The  quarrel,  if  one  has  any,  is  with  the  fact  that  man 
is  quickened  to  spiritual  life  and  sustained  in  it  by  the  Spirit  of 
God  ;  it  is  not  with  the  fact  that  God  eternally  purposed  so  to  do. 

It  is  sometimes  objected  that  the  only  election  in  the  Bible 
is  of  nations  to  gospel  privileges,  —  not  of  individuals  to  faith, 
repentance,  and  salvation.  The  election  of  Israel  is  recognized 
in  the  Bible.  But  an  examination  of  the  scriptural  teachings 
shows  that  the  election  is  not  usually  to  gospel  privileges,  but  to 
obedience,  sanctification  and  salvation ;  and  that  the  language 
commonly  precludes  the  reference  to  nations  and  can  be  ex¬ 
plained  only  as  referring  to  individuals. 

II.  Reasonableness  of  the  Doctrine.  —  The  scriptural  doc¬ 
trine  of  election,  understood  in  its  true  significance,  commends 
itself  to  us  as  reasonable. 

1.  It  is  simply  a  special  application  to  God’s  action  in 
redemption  of  the  doctrine  of  God’s  universal  providential  gov¬ 
ernment  and  purpose.  All  God’s  action  is  included  in  his 
providential  government,  inasmuch  as  it  is  the  immediate  or 
remote  ground  of  the  actuality  of  events,  and  all  beings  and 
events  depend  for  their  actuality,  immediately  or  remotely,  on 
the  action  of  God.  And  all  God’s  action  implies  his  eternal 
purpose.  Redemption  and  its  results  cannot  be  left  out.  No 
rational  person  can  attain  his  right  character  and  development 
except  as  he  is  willingly  receptive  of  the  gracious  influence  of 
God.  No  sinner  can  return  to  God  and  begin  the  new  life 
except  as  he  willingly  receives  God’s  grace  and  follows  the 
drawing  of  his  love.  Christ  reveals  God’s  gracious  action  in 
redemption  and  his  readiness  to  receive  every  sinner  that  yields 
to  his  drawing  and  accepts  his  grace. 

2.  Christian  consciousness  attests  the  truth  of  the  doctrine. 
Every  Christian  ascribes  his  conversion,  his  justification,  his  new 
spiritual  life,  to  God.  The  language  of  Christian  piety  is,  Not 
unto  us,  not  unto  us,  O  Lord,  but  unto  thy  name  give  glory. 
The  worship  of  the  Christian  church  in  all  ages  acknowledges 
the  same. 

“  Jesus  sought  me  when  a  stranger 
Wandering  from  the  fold  of  God.” 

Prayer,  thanksgiving,  and  praise  are  in  their  distinctive  meaning 
the  expression  of  the  Christian’s  consciousness  of  dependence 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  7 


on  God  and  faith  in  him  as  the  source  of  all  spiritual  good.  The 
difficulties  respecting  election  in  theological  speculation  are  not 
felt  in  Christian  living.  No  one  in  the  actual  Christian  life  and 
work  feels  his  dependence  on  God  and  on  God’s  calling  and 
election,  or  his  faith  in  God  to  be  a  hindrance  to  his  own  free¬ 
dom  and  power.  On  the  contrary,  in  his  deepest  sense  of 
dependence  and  his  strongest  faith  he  most  fully  attains  his  real 
freedom  and  his  greatest  power.  It  is  then  he  says  with  Paul, 
“  I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ  who  strengtheneth  me.” 
In  our  processes  of  logic  we  try  to  construct  the  two  into  unity 
in  a  mechanical  way,  as  if  by  mortise  and  tenon,  and  we  find 
difficulty.  But  in  the  processes  of  spiritual  life  we  find  none. 
We  lay  hold  of  God’s  hand  extended  to  us  in  redeeming  grace, 
and  at  the  touch  we  feel  the  thrill  of  a  new  life  quickening  all 
our  spiritual  energies,  and  exert  our  highest  spiritual  powers 
vitalized,  upheld,  and  guided  by  his  divine  hand.  Thus  Christian 
consciousness  attests  both  God’s  election  and  our  own  free  and 
responsible  action  as  joint  agencies  in  the  beginning  and  the 
continuance  of  the  Christian  life  and  work. 

3.  The  scriptural  doctrine  of  election  in  its  true  significance 
commends  itself  to  reason,  because  it  recognizes  and  emphasizes 
man’s  dependence  on  God.  Thus  it  is  essential  to  any  true 
philosophical  conception  of  man’s  relation  to  God  or  of  a  sinner’s 
reconciliation  to  him.  Man  is  at  once  a  free  agent  and  depend¬ 
ent  on  God.  Both  facts  must  have  full  weight  in  any  just  con¬ 
ception  of  man’s  relation  to  God.  The  doctrine  of  election 
emphasizes  man’s  dependence. 

This  is  essential  because  man  is  created  and  finite,  and  God  is 
the  absolute  Being,  the  creator.  All  action  of  finite  beings  is 
either  reception  or  production,  and  the  reception  must  precede 
the  production.  God  alone  can  produce  without  having  pre¬ 
viously  received.  The  creature’s  receptive  action  is  necessary  on 
account  of  his  limitation  and  dependence.  His  productive 
action  is  the  result  of  his  power,  freedom,  and  moral  obligation. 
Hence  the  distinction  of  faith  and  works.  Faith  is  the  receptive 
action  expressing  the  sense  of  dependence  and  trusting  God ; 
its  natural  language  is  prayer  and  worship.  Work  is  the  pro¬ 
ductive  action,  the  putting  forth  of  the  energies  working  with 
God  in  our  own  sanctification  and  in  the  advancement  of  his 
kingdom,  in  life  and  work  quickened  and  sustained  by  his  grace 


8 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


through  trust  in  him.  Also,  as  a  sinner,  man  must  trust  in  God 
for  forgiveness  and  for  spiritual  quickening  and  growth.  And 
the  offers  and  influences  of  redemption  are  not  received  by  man 
passively  as  water  is  received  by  a  cistern,  but  by  the  free  con¬ 
sent  of  the  will  trusting  in  God.  Thus  God’s  election  of  men 
to  salvation  through  faith,  obedience,  and  sanctification  by  the 
Spirit  commends  itself  as  reasonable  both  because  man  is  a 
creature  and  because  he  is  a  sinner.  The  doctrine  thus  asserts 
God’s  sovereign  right  to  the  confidence  and  trust,  the  obedience 
and  service,  of  all  his  rational  creatures. 

4.  The  doctrine  commends  itself  as  reasonable  in  its  recognition 
of  man’s  free  will  in  its  full  significance. 

The  scriptural  doctrine  of  election  recognizes  man’s  free  will 
and  his  real  agency  in  determining  his  own  character  and  destiny. 
Men  are  not  chosen  to  salvation  irrespective  of  their  own  action 
and  character.  They  are  chosen  in  Christ  to  “  be  holy  and  with¬ 
out  blame  before  him  in  love  ” ;  “  unto  obedience  and  sprinkling 
of  the  blood  of  Christ  ”  ;  “  through  sanctification  of  the  Spirit  and 
belief  of  the  truth  ”  ;  “to  be  conformed  to  the  image  of  his  son  ”  ; 
“to  go  and  bring  forth  fruit.”  And  the  whole  tenor  of  the  bibli¬ 
cal  teaching  assumes  man’s  personal  responsibility  for  his  action 
and  character,  his  freedom  to  choose  or  refuse  Christ  and  his  ser¬ 
vice.  “  Whosoever  will  let  him  take  the  water  of  life  freely”; 
“Ye  will  not  come  to  me  that  ye  may  have  life.” 

And  the  scriptures  teach  that  the  action  of  men  under  the 
gracious  action  of  God  in  redemption,  whether  they  accept  or 
reject  his  grace,  is  foreknown  by  God  and  considered  in  his  eter¬ 
nal  purpose  ;  “  Elect  according  to  the  foreknowledge  of  God  ”  ; 
“  Whom  he  did  foreknow  he  also  did  predestinate  ” ;  “  Him 
being  delivered  up  by  the  determinate  counsel  and  foreknow¬ 
ledge  of  God.”  1  The  Bible  represents  God’s  purpose  and  fore¬ 
knowledge  as  distinguishable  in  thought,  but  in  fact  inseparable, 
co-existent,  and  eternal.  It  enters  into  no  speculative  explana¬ 
tions  of  the  relation  and  harmony  of  the  two.  The  important 
point  is  that  God’s  purpose  is  not  caprice  or  fate,  but  a  rational 
and  intelligent  purpose.  He  eternally  knows  all  that  is  possible 
in  a  system  grounded  in  perfect  reason  and  constituted  according 
to  perfect  wisdom  and  love,  and  he  knows  all  that  is  actual  in  it 
as  an  immediate  or  remote  consequence  of  his  own  action.  It  is 

1  1  Pet.  i.  2 ;  Rom.  viii.  29 ;  Acts  ii.  23. 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  9 


in  the  light  of  this  knowledge  that  he  sees  the  archetypal  world- 
idea  which  expresses  the  thought  of  his  wisdom  in  the  action  of 
his  love.  If  a  rational  and  omniscient  being  is  at  the  basis  of  all 
things,  it  is  certain  that  his  purpose  must  be  eternal  in  the  light 
of  his  knowledge,  and  must  take  account  of  the  foreseen  action  of 
his  creatures.  In  the  actual  government  of  the  world,  after  it  has 
been  created,  God’s  action  is  sometimes  conditioned  on  the  action 
of  his  creatures.  Otherwise,  he  cannot  bless  the  righteous,  nor 
forgive  and  bless  the  penitent,  nor  punish  men  for  sin.  In  other 
words,  if  God’s  action  is  never  conditioned  on  the  action  of  his 
creatures,  a  moral  system  and  moral  government  are  impossible. 
So  far  as  his  action  is  conditioned  on  the  action  of  his  creatures, 
so  far  his  purpose  to  act  is  conditioned  on  his  foresight  of  the 
creature’s  action. 

This  is  exemplified  in  regeneration.  God’s  work  of  redemp¬ 
tion  in  Christ  as  a  whole,  and  his  gracious  coming  to  men  in  the 
Spirit  with  the  offers  and  influences  of  redemption,  are  of  his  own 
self-moved  love  seeking  sinners  in  their  sin,  unconditioned  on  any 
previous  act  of  the  sinner  seeking  God.  But  God’s  acceptance, 
justification,  and  salvation  of  the  sinner  are  conditioned  on  the 
sinner’s  faith  and  repentance.  The  Bible  never  says  to  the  sin¬ 
ner,  Trust  in  Christ  and  repent,  and  God  will  send  his  Spirit  to 
you  and  will  give  you  a  new  heart.  But  it  says,  Trust  in  Christ 
and  repent,  and  God  will  forgive  your  sins  and  justify  you 
freely  by  his  grace.  The  Spirit,  coming  in  God’s  self-moved, 
prevenient  grace,  strives  with  the  sinner  to  bring  him  freely  to 
trust  in  Christ  and  so  to  repent  of  sin.  Faith  and  repentance  are 
willing  acts  of  man  yielding  to  the  influence  of  the  Spirit.  Justi¬ 
fication  is  the  act  of  God  promised  on  condition  of  faith  and 
repentance.  Thus  man  by  his  own  free  action  under  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  God’s  Spirit  determines  his  own  character  and  destiny. 

The  same  is  true  of  sanctification.  The  Christian’s  sanctifica¬ 
tion  is  progressive  by  his  own  faith  which  worketh  by  love  under 
the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  dwelling  in  him. 

While  justification  and  all  the  privileges  involved  in  it  are  con¬ 
ditioned  on  the  man’s  action,  this  is  not  incompatible  with  the 
absoluteness  of  God ;  for  this  condition  is  not  brought  on  God 
from  without  by  any  power  independent  of  him ;  but  by  his  own 
free  act  in  his  perfect  wisdom  and  love  he  subjects  himself  to  it 
by  creating  and  sustaining  the  universe.  The  man  as  well  as  the 


IO 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


moral  system  and  the  universe  depend  on  God  for  their  exist¬ 
ence  ;  and  God’s  whole  action  in  redemption  is  self-moved  and 
self- originated. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  Bible  recognizes  both  the 
divine  agency  and  the  human  as  essential  in  the  salvation  of  a 
sinner  from  sin  and  condemnation.  Without  God’s  grace  to  man 
and  his  divine  agency  in  redemption,  not  only  would  man’s  agency 
be  unavailing,  but  he  would  go  on  in  sin  making  no  effort  to  win 
God’s  favor.  On  the  other  hand,  without  man’s  freely  concur¬ 
ring  action,  all  God’s  action  in  redemption  would  not  avail  to 
save  him.  When  the  sinner  turns  to  God  in  repentance,  it  is 
to  God  already  graciously  disposed  to  receive  the  penitent  and 
already  seeking  the  sinner  with  offers  and  influences  of  redemp¬ 
tion  to  draw  him  to  himself.  In  that  act  of  turning  to  God  in 
penitence,  the  man  becomes  a  worker  together  with  God.  But 
when  the  sinner  has  persisted  in  sin  and  is  lost  in  endless  aliena¬ 
tion  from  God,  God  has  exhausted  the  resources  of  wisdom  and 
love  to  save  him,  and  the  sinner  has  resisted  all  the  heavenly  in¬ 
fluences.  The  divine  agency  has  been  freely  and  fully  exerted  in 
his  behalf,  but  the  man  has  not  only  not  concurred  with  it,  but  has 
exerted  all  his  energies  in  antagonism  to  it. 

A  prominent  objection  to  the  doctrine  of  election  has  always 
been  that  it  is  incompatible  with  free-will. 

This  objection  has  been  founded  on  misapprehensions.  It  is 
of  no  force  against  the  scriptural  doctrine  as  it  has  here  been  pre¬ 
sented.  It  has  rested  on  a  misapprehension  of  God’s  sovereignty 
as  an  arbitrary  almightiness  unregulated  by  the  truths,  laws,  and 
ideals  of  reason  ;  on  a  misapprehension  of  the  will  as  power  only, 
overlooking  the  fact  that  the  essence  of  free-will  is  that  it  is  a 
power  acting  in  the  light  of  reason,  and  therefore  self-directing 
and  self-exertive ;  on  a  misapprehension  of  moral  freedom  as 
possible  only  so  long  as  the  will  is  characterless  and  indifferent. 
It  has  rested  also  on  the  error  that  God’s  election  and  his  provi¬ 
dential  purpose  are  executed  by  the  direct  efficiency  of  his 
almighty  power,  —  not  by  acting  through  the  agencies  operating 
in  the  universe  according  to  the  laws  of  their  being,  but  passing 
over  them  entirely. 

The  objection  has  arisen  also  from  a  sort  of  Epicurean  or  deis- 
tic  exclusion  of  God  from  the  universe,  as  if  he  were  something 
foreign  from  it  instead  of  being  immanent  in  it,  from  which  it  is 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  II 

inferred  that  any  influence  of  God’s  Spirit  on  man  must  be  an  in¬ 
fringement  on  his  free  agency.  Whereas  man’s  normal  condition 
is  that  of  union  with  God  dwelling  in  him  by  the  gracious  influ¬ 
ences  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  essence  of  sin  is  man’s  wilful 
alienation  of  himself  from  God  in  self-sufficiency.  God  is  man’s 
spiritual  environment.  “  In  him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being.”  Apart  from  his  environing  us  with  divine  light,  love,  and 
quickening  we  cannot  live  and  thrive  and  bear  fruit  spiritually, 
any  more  than  a  plant  can  live  without  its  environment  of  sun¬ 
shine,  air,  moisture,  and  soil  and  all  cosmic  agencies.  It  is  only 
in  union  with  God  that  any  man  realizes  his  true  freedom,  power, 
wisdom,  and  perfection.  No  one  can  enter  into  the  spirit  of 
Christianity  till  he  rids  himself  of  this  miserable  jealousy  of  God’s 
influence  on  the  human  spirit,  and  cordially  enters  into  the 
Saviour’s  doctrine  that  the  Spirit  of  God  acting  in  and  on  the 
human  spirit  becomes  the  principle  of  a  new  and  spiritual  life,  and 
learns  to  say  with  Paul :  “  I  live ;  and  yet  no  longer  I,  but  Christ 
liveth  in  me  ”  (Gal.  ii.  20). 

It  is  objected  that  man  in  his  finiteness  cannot  withstand  the 
almighty  power  of  God.  This  is  true.  But  God  does  not  convert 
souls  by  almightiness.  Having  created  moral  agents  and  consti¬ 
tuted  them  in  a  moral  system,  his  action  on  them  in  his  moral 
government  will  always  be  accordant  with  their  constitution  as 
rational  free  agents  under  moral  government  and  law.  “  I  drew 
them  with  cords  of  a  man,  with  bands  of  love  ”  (Hos.  xi.  4) .  Man 
in  his  dependence  and  seeming  littleness  face  to  face  with  the  al¬ 
mighty  and  infinite  God,  is  free  to  obey  or  disobey  his  commands, 
to  accept  or  refuse  the  offers  of  his  grace.  He  is  not  overpowered 
and  crushed  by  the  greatness  of  God ;  but  standing  free  in  the 
presence  of  God,  the  man’s  own  greatness  is  revealed.  He  knows 
himself,  a  rational  free  spirit  in  the  likeness  of  God  and  admitted 
to  communion  with  him.  It  is  indeed  a  startling  thought  that  a 
man  can  withstand  God ;  that  God  may  exhaust  the  resources  of 
his  wisdom  and  love  in  influencing  a  sinner  to  return  to  him  and 
begin  the  life  of  love,  and  the  sinner  may  resist  them  all.  But 
this  power  of  resisting  God’s  love  is  inseparable  from  the  essential 
idea  of  a  free  moral  agent  and  a  system  of  free  agents  under 
moral  government.  It  calls  attention  to  the  sublime  reality  and 
the  solemn  responsibility  of  free  agency,  and  to  the  grandeur  of 
the  fact  that  God  is  a  spirit  administering  moral  government, 


12 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


under  the  law  of  universal  love,  over  innumerable  persons  rational 
and  self-directing  like  himself,  who  are  objects  of  his  righteous 
love,  whom  he  draws  by  all  the  influences  of  wisdom  and  love  to 
trust  and  serve  him  in  universal  love  like  his  own,  whom,  if  they 
consent  to  receive  his  grace,  he  is  instructing,  disciplining,  and 
educating  in  the  life  of  faith  and  love  to  the  full  development  of 
all  their  spiritual  capacities  and  powers.  But  every  one  of  them, 
by  the  very  fact  that  he  is  a  rational  person  under  God’s  moral 
government,  is  able  to  trust  and  follow  or  to  resist  the  influence 
of  God’s  redeeming  grace,  and  has  the  responsibility  of  deciding 
his  own  character  and  destiny. 

And  because  God’s  purpose  respecting  men  takes  cognizance 
of  their  foreseen  character,  election  in  the  Bible  signifies  God’s 
approval  of  those  who  live  in  faith  and  love,  and  his  complacency 
and  delight  in  them  on  account  of  their  character.  In  this  sense 
they  are  called  his  elect,  his  chosen.  Accordingly,  Clement  of 
Alexandria  says,  “All  men  having  been  called  (of  God),  those 
who  willingly  obey  are  named  the  elect.”  1  In  God’s  actual  treat¬ 
ment  of  men  in  his  government  of  the  world,  he  expresses,  as  to 
all  who  come  to  Christ  and  therein  turn  from  sin  to  holiness,  his 
approval  and  complacency.  “The  Lord  delighteth  in  his  saints.” 
“The  Lord  hath  set  apart  him  that  is  godly  for  himself”  (Ps.  iv. 
3).  “They  shall  be  mine  in  that  day  when  I  make  up  my  jewels.” 
And  the  same  approval  and  complacency  are  recognized  by  the 
inspired  writers  in  his  purpose  by  calling  them  his  elect,  his 
chosen  ones,  in  whom  on  account  of  their  right  character  he 
delights.2  In  the  same  way  Christ,  spoken  of  as  foreordained 
and  foretold,  is  called  “  elect,  precious.”  3 

In  setting  forth  man’s  freedom  the  doctrine  also  recognizes  the 
fact  that  man  has  rights  which  God  always  respects.  God  violates 
no  right  of  a  creature  by  the  limitation  of  its  finite  constitution.4 
He  does  no  wrong  to  a  stone  in  not  making  it  a  plant,  nor  to  a 
plant  in  not  making  it  an  animal,  nor  to  a  brute  in  not  making  it 
a  man,  nor  to  a  man  in  not  making  him  an  angel.  And  a  sinner 
has  no  claim  on  the  ground  of  his  own  merits  to  forgiveness  and 

1  Stromata,  I.  xviii.  9. 

2  Malachi  iii.  17  ;  Isa.  xlii.  1 ;  xlv.  4;  lxv.  9,  22  ;  Mark  xiii.  20;  Acts  ix 
1551  Pet.  ii.  9;  Rev.  xvii.  14. 

3  1  Pet.  ii.  4,  6  ;  Luke  xxiii.  35. 

4  See  “  Self-Revelation  of  God,”  pp.  299-306. 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  1 3 


the  privileges  of  the  children  of  God.  But  God  owes  a  duty  to 
himself  and  to  his  own  law  of  love.  He  is  under  obligation  to  act 
in  a  manner  worthy  of  God ;  to  act  towards  every  creature  in 
perfect  wisdom  and  love. 

Because  God’s  action  is  always  conformed  to  the  law  of  love, 
which  is  the  eternal  law  of  reason,  he  is  under  obligation  to  deal 
with  man  in  righteousness  and  good-will.  The  teaching  of  some 
theologians  that  God  is  under  obligation  to  deal  with  men  in 
righteousness  but  not  in  benevolence  is  contrary  to  scripture  and 
to  reason  and  true  philosophy.  Righteousness  and  benevolence 
are  the  two  essential  aspects  of  the  love  which  the  law  requires. 
An  attempted  benevolence  not  exercised  in  righteousness  would 
be  destructive  not  only  of  all  law  but  also  of  all  true  good  having 
real  worth  as  estimated  by  the  standards  of  reason.  And  an 
attempted  righteousness  without  benevolence  would  be  a  Dracon¬ 
ian  tyranny  destructive  not  only  of  all  good  but  of  the  law  of  love 

1 

itself ;  for  the  love  which  it  requires  by  the  exclusion  of  benevo¬ 
lence  would  be  eviscerated  and  dead.  God  is  under  obligation 
to  the  law  of  love  eternal  and  immutable  in  himself,  the  absolute 
Reason,  to  deal  in  righteousness  and  benevolence  with  every 
rational  creature,  whether  sinful  or  holy,  mature  or  infantile 
with  moral  character  not  yet  developed.  And  because  man, 
rational  like  God,  is  under  the  same  law  of  love,  he  stands  in  the 
presence  of  God  and  appeals  to  the  universal  law  :  “  Shall  not  the 
judge  of  all  the  earth  do  right  ?  ”  Man  has  the  right  under  the 
eternal  law  of  love  to  be  treated  by  God  in  equity,  with  righteous¬ 
ness  and  good-will.  For  example,  he  has  a  right  to  be  exempt  from 
accountability  for  what  it  was  never  in  his  power  to  do  or  to  prevent, 
and  for  sins  committed  ages  before  he  was  born.  The  doctrine 
also  brings  into  clear  light  the  fact  that,  because  God’s  law  is  the 
law  of  perfect  reason  and  requires  universal  love,  and  because  it 
is  the  law  which  the  God  in  Christ  himself  obeyed  on  earth  and 
vindicated  in  suffering  and  death  in  fidelity  to  it,  therefore  sinners 
are  wholly  unreasonable  and  without  excuse  in  their  sins  and  with¬ 
out  any  claim  of  merit  before  God.  Therefore  the  sinner  can 
only  cast  himself  on  the  sovereign  mercy  of  God.  Therefore,  in 
setting  forth  God’s  sovereignty  as  exercised  under  the  law  of  love 
which  he  commands  his  creatures  to  obey,  the  doctrine  vindicates 
God’s  just  rights  in  relation  to  man,  shows  the  reasonableness  of 
his  commands  and  the  unreasonableness  of  man’s  sin,  and  so  all 
the  world  stands  guilty  before  God. 


14 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


5.  The  true  significance  of  the  doctrine  may  be  further  eluci¬ 
dated  by  contrast  with  a  false  doctrine  of  predestination  and 
election  which  has  been  widely  prevalent.  This  doctrine,  with 
the  doctrines  logically  inferred  from  it,  is  in  brief  as  follows. 

God  has  eternally  elected  some  definitely  designated  persons 
to  salvation  and  has  justified  these  persons  in  his  eternal  purpose 
or  decree  ;  the  number  elected  is  definitely  fixed  and  cannot  be 
increased  or  diminished ;  they  are  chosen  by  God  without  any 
foresight  of  faith  or  repentance,  or  good  works,  or  perseverance, 
or  any  right  character  of  these  persons  as  condition  or  reason 
moving  him  thereunto.  And  all  other  persons,  for  the  glory  of 
his  sovereign  power,  God  eternally  purposes  to  pass  by  and  leave 
in  sin  and  ordains  them  for  their  sin  to  condemnation  forever.1 

As  God  has  appointed  the  elect  unto  glory,  so  he  has  foreor¬ 
dained  all  the  means  thereunto.  He  sends  his  son  into  the  world 
to  make  atonement  for  the  elect  and  for  them  alone. 

Man  lost  his  free  will  in  the  Fall,  and  thereafter  all  men  are 
both  unwilling  and  unable  to  return  to  God ;  they  are  under  a 
necessity  to  do  evil,  slaves  to  the  devil  and  their  own  lusts.  The 
vindication  of  God’s  right  arbitrarily  to  elect  some  and  to  pass  by 
others  rested  on  the  doctrine  of  original  sin.  Man  had  his  pro¬ 
bation  as  a  race  in  Adam  and  fell  in  him.  After  the  Fall  the 
human  race  is  one  “  mass  of  perdition”  ( massa  perditionis') ,  all 
alike  under  deserved  condemnation.  Therefore,  it  was  argued, 
when  God  of  his  own  sovereign  will  elects  some  to  salvation  he 
does  no  wrong  to  the  others  whom  he  passes  by  and  leaves  under 
the  condemnation  which  for  their  sins  they  deserve. 

Having  thus  made  atonement  limited  to  the  elect,  God  sends 
his  spirit  to  regenerate  these  elect  persons  and  no  others.  The 
regeneration  is  wrought  by  an  act  of  almighty  power,  by  irresis¬ 
tible  grace.  Grace  itself  came  to  denote  God’s  power  instead  of 
his  favor  or  gracious  disposition.  The  Spirit  of  God  may  come 
with  enlightening  influence  to  the  non-elect,  convincing  them  of 
sin,  but  it  never  exerts  on  them  the  regenerating  energy  which 
none  on  whom  it  is  exerted  can  resist  and  without  which  none 
can  be  saved.  This  irresistible  grace  is  given  only  to  the  elect. 

1  “  That  there  is  an  election  and  reprobation  of  infants  no  less  than  of 
adults,  we  cannot  deny  in  the  face  of  God,  who  loves  and  hates  unborn  chil¬ 
dren.”  (Acta  Synod.  Dort.  Judic.  40.) 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  1 5 


And  having  thus  regenerated  the  elect  God  keeps  them  by  the 
same  irresistible  grace  so  that  they  can  never  fall  away. 

This  form  of  the  doctrine  of  predestination  and  election,  with 
the  doctrines  logically  derived  from  it,  is  incompatible  with  free 
will,  and  with  moral  law,  a  moral  system,  and  moral  government. 
It  has  often  been  explicitly  asserted  that  free  will  was  lost  in  the 
Fall.  The  doctrine  has  been  commonly  associated  with  deter¬ 
minism,  denying  that  a  man  determines  by  will  the  ends  for 
which  he  acts  and  the  exertion  of  his  powers,  and  teaching  that 
the  will  itself  is  determined  by  the  strongest  motive.  Its  logical 
basis  is  the  fundamental  error  that  arbitrary  and  almighty  will  un¬ 
regulated  by  reason  is  supreme.  This  doctrine,  with  its  necessary 
sequences,  has  been  variously  modified  in  the  course  of  theologi¬ 
cal  thought  through  the  ages.  Elements  of  it  and  tendencies  of 
thought  originated  in  it  still  survive.  Its  deepest  root,  the  con¬ 
ception  of  the  supremacy  of  will  unregulated  by  reason,  is  by  no 
means  eradicated  but  is  still  sprouting  up  into  theology.  All  doc¬ 
trines  of  God’s  sovereignty  springing  from  this  root  logically  in¬ 
volve  the  denial  of  free  will  and  moral  government.  It  is  some 
erroneous  form  of  the  doctrine  of  election  against  which  the 
common  objections  are  urged.  These  objections  are  of  no  force 
against  the  scriptural  doctrine  rightly  understood.1 

1  Browning  pictures  this  false  doctrine  of  election  in  its  practical  influence 
as  presented  by  Johannes  Agricola  in  Meditation  :  — 

There ’s  heaven  above,  and  night  by  night 
I  look  right  thro’  its  gorgeous  roof; 

No  suns  or  moons  tho’  e’er  so  bright 
Avail  to  stop  me ;  splendor-proof 
I  keep  the  broods  of  stars  aloof : 

For  I  intend  to  get  to  God, 

For  ’tis  to  God  I  speed  so  fast, 

For  in  God’s  breast,  my  own  abode, 

Those  shoals  of  dazzling  glory  passed, 

I  lay  my  spirit  down  at  last. 

I  lie,  where  I  have  always  lain  ; 

God  smiles  as  he  has  always  smiled  ; 

Ere  suns  and  moons  could  wax  and  wane, 

Ere  stars  were  thunder-girt,  or  piled 
The  heavens,  God  thought  on  me  his  child; 

Ordained  a  life  for  me,  arrayed 
Its  circumstances  every  one 

To  the  minutest;  ay,  God  said 

This  head  this  hand  should  rest  upon 
Thus,  ere  he  fashioned  star  or  sun. 


1 6 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


The  truth  underlying  the  extravagant  doctrine  of  unconditional 
election  which  has  been  described,  is  the  great  fact  that  it  is  God 
who  first  seeks  man  in  redemption,  not  man  who  first  seeks  God,  — 
and  that  this  is  true  both  of  God’s  redemptive  action  as  a  whole 
and  of  his  approaches  to  individuals  by  his  word  and  his  Spirit  to 
draw  them  to  himself.  Through  lack  of  discrimination,  theologians 

And  having  thus  created  me, 

Thus  rooted  me,  he  bade  me  grow, 

Guiltless  forever,  like  a  tree 

That  buds  and  blooms,  nor  seeks  to  know 
The  law  by  which  it  prospers  so  ; 

But  sure  that  thought  and  word  and  deed 
All  go  to  swell  his  love  for  me, 

Me,  made  because  that  love  had  need 
Of  something  irreversibly 
Pledged  solely  its  content  to  be. 

Yes,  yes,  a  tree  which  must  ascend, 

No  poison-gourd  foredoomed  to  stoop. 

I  have  God’s  warrant,  could  I  blend 
All  hideous  sins  as  in  a  cup, 

To  drink  the  mingled  venoms  up ; 

Secure  my  nature  will  convert 

The  draught  to  blossoming  gladness  fast ; 

While  sweet  dews  turn  to  the  gourd’s  hurt, 

And  bloat,  and  while  they  bloat  it,  blast, 

As  from  the  first  its  lot  was  cast. 

For  as  I  lie,  smiled  on,  full-fed 

By  unexhausted  power  to  bless, 

I  gaze  below  on  hell’s  fierce  bed, 

And  those  its  waves  of  flame  oppress, 

Swarming  in  ghastly  wretchedness  ; 

Whose  life  on  earth  appeared  to  be 

One  altar-smoke,  so  pure  —  to  win, 

If  not  love  like  God’s  love  to  me, 

At  least  to  keep  his  anger  in  ; 

And  all  their  striving  turned  to  sin. 

Priest,  doctor,  hermit,  monk  grown  white 
With  prayer,  the  broken-hearted  nun, 

The  martyr,  the  wan  acolyte, 

The  incense-swinging  child,  —  undone 
Before  God  fashioned  star  or  sun  ! 

God,  whom  I  praise,  how  could  I  praise, 

If  such  as  I  might  understand, 

Make  out  and  reckon  on  his  ways, 

And  bargain  for  his  love  and  stand, 

Paying  a  price,  at  his  right  hand. 

Robert  Browning:  Men  and  Women ,  Poetical 
Works,  vol.  v.  pp.  229-231.  London,  1882. 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  1 7 


have  applied  this  great  truth  to  the  election  of  the  individual  so 
as  logically  to  involve  the  denial  of  justification  by  faith.  For  in 
this  application  of  the  doctrine  of  unconditional  election,  the 
man’s  faith  would  not  be  a  real  condition  of  his  justification ;  it 
would  be  merely  docetic,  an  illusion  and  sham. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  had  denials  of  God’s  election  so 
one-sided  and  ill-considered  as  to  involve  the  overlooking  of 
God’s  free  and  sovereign  grace  seeking  man  to  redeem  him  from 
sin,  not  moved  thereto  by  any  antecedent  action  of  man  seeking 
God,  the  exaltation  of  man  to  practical  independence  of  God, 
the  magnifying  of  God’s  fatherly  love  to  the  exclusion  of  his 
sovereignty,  law,  and  government,  and  the  denial  of  God’s 
universal  providence. 

III.  The  Ideal  and  the  Real.  —  The  objection  is  urged  that 
we  present  only  the  ideal,  not  the  real ;  that  we  present  what 
God’s  government  ought  to  be,  and  what  it  is  reasonable  to 
expect  it  to  be  ;  but  that  this  ideal  is  not  realized  in  the  real, 
and  is  incompatible  with  the  actual  facts  in  the  constitution  and 
evolution  of  the  universe,  and  in  the  constitution  and  history  of 
man.  The  ideal  is  that  God  in  universal  love  does  all  that  per¬ 
fect  wisdom,  righteousness,  and  good-will  require  or  permit,  to 
realize  the  highest  ideal  of  perfection  and  well-being  possible  in  a 
finite  universe  and  a  moral  system  of  finite  free  agents,  and  this 
both  for  every  individual  and  for  mankind  in  society.  But  it  is 
said  that  the  real  does  not  accord  with  this  ideal ;  children  are 
born  in  the  slums  of  great  cities,  their  environment  shutting  them 
out  from  the  knowledge  of  God  and  his  revelation  in  Christ,  and 
from  all  influences  to  right  living,  and  fraught  with  influences  pre¬ 
disposing  them  to  vice,  and  themselves  with  innate  propensities 
to  evil  inherited  from  vicious  ancestors ;  men  existed  for  long 
ages  in  savagery,  some  remains  of  which  still  linger  on  earth  ; 
the  majority  of  mankind  are  still  non-Christian ;  and  even  where 
the  people  are  nominally  Christian,  the  progress  of  Christian 
civilization  is  far  from  complete.  This  objection  is  presented 
forcibly  by  Herbert  Spencer,  in  an  article  in  the  “  Fortnightly 
Review  ”  (1895)  :  “After  nearly  two  thousand  years  of  Christian 
teaching  and  discipline,  how  near  are  we  to  that  ideal  life  which 
Christian  leading  was  to  bring  us  to  ?  What  must  we  think  of  the 
sentiment  implied  in  the  saying  of  a  glorified  prince,  repeated  by 


VOL.  11.  —  2 


i8 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


a  popular  Emperor,  lauding  ‘  blood  and  iron  —  a  remedy  which 
never  fails  ?  ’  Among  the  peoples  who  socially  insist  on  duels, 
what  advance  do  we  see  toward  the  practice  of  forgiving  injuries? 
Or,  turning  from  private  to  public  transactions,  what  restraint  do 
we  find  upon  the  passion  of  international  revenge  —  revenge  by 
the  great  mass  insisted  upon  as  a  duty  ?  How  much  moralization 
can  we  trace  in  the  contrast  between  the  practices  of  savages, 
whose  maxim  in  their  inter- tribal  feuds  is  ‘  Life  for  life,’  and  the 
practice  of  Christian  nations,  who  in  their  dealings  with  weak 
peoples  take  as  their  maxim,  ‘  F'or  one  life,  many  lives?  ’  Toward 
the  foretold  state  when  swords  shall  be  beaten  into  ploughshares, 
how  much  have  we  progressed,  now  that  there  exist  bigger  armies 
than  ever  existed  before?  And  where  are  the  indications  of 
increased  brotherly  love  in  the  doings  of  Christian  nations  in 
Africa,  where,  like  hungry  dogs  round  a  carcass,  they  tear  out 
piece  after  piece,  pausing  only  to  snarl  and  snap  at  one  another?  ” 
This,  it  is  said,  is  the  real,  which  silences  all  argument  from  the 
ideal.  This  objection  is  urged  against  our  conception  of  God’s 
providential  government,  and  also  against  the  vindication  of  God 
in  reference  to  the  existence  of  sin  and  evil  in  our  theodicy.  The 
answer  is  that  the  realization  of  the  divine  ideal  in  the  finite  is 
necessarily  progressive ;  that  the  Christian  ideal  commends  itself 
as  reasonable  to  all  right-minded  persons ;  and  that,  though  the 
ideal  is  not  yet  fully  realized,  we  trace  in  fact  progress  toward  its 
realization  in  the  history  of  Christianity  through  the  ages  until  the 
present  time. 

i.  The  Ideal  is  the  fundamental  Reality.  If  by  the  ideal  the 
objector  means  merely  the  subjective  thought  of  the  individual, 
the  objection  might  be  valid.  But  in  the  theistic  argument  the 
ideal  denotes  the  rational  conception  or  archetype  of  something 
constituted  in  exact  conformity  with  the  immutable  principles 
and  laws  of  reason.  The  inventor  of  the  watch  must  have  formed 
the  ideal  of  a  watch  as  possible  to  be  realized.  He  determines 
according  to  the  eternal  laws  of  mechanics  of  what  material  it 
will  be  possible  to  make  it,  and  what  must  be  the  shaping  and 
combination  of  the  same  necessary  to  realize  the  ideal.  He  can¬ 
not  realize  the  ideal  by  any  shaping  and  combination  of  clay  or 
soft  wood,  nor  with  the  appropriate  materials  except  as  they  are 
shaped  and  combined  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  mechanics. 
When  the  watch  has  been  made  in  exact  accordance  with  these 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  1 9 


laws,  the  inventor  has  realized  his  ideal.  This  ideal  existed  in 
his  mind  before  it  was  realized  in  the  watch.  It  could  never 
exist  as  a  real  watch  if  its  ideal  had  not  first  existed  in  the  mind 
of  the  inventor,  and  then  been  realized  by  a  competent  artificer. 
In  this  sense  we  may  say  that  the  fundamental  reality  of  the 
watch  was  its  ideal,  thus  pre-existing  and  progressively  realized. 
In  a  similar  sense  we  may  say  that  the  fundamental  reality  of  the 
universe  is  its  archetypal  ideal  thus  pre-existing  in  the  mind  or 
reason  of  God,  and  progressively  realized  by  him  in  the  consti¬ 
tution  and  evolution  of  the  universe  in  exact  accordance  with  the 
principles  and  laws  of  reason.  The  physical  is  the  manifestation 
of  the  spiritual,  the  spiritual  is  not  the  manifestation  of  the 
physical.  If  we  admit  the  validity  of  the  intuition  of  reason  in 
which  we  know  principles  of  truth,  laws  of  right,  ideals  of  per¬ 
fection  and  well-being,  which  are  norms  regulative  of  thought  and 
power,  and  standards  of  worth  and  well-being,  we  must  admit  the 
existence  of  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  in  whom  these  principles 
are  eternal.  They  are  of  no  validity  as  mere  impersonal  abstrac¬ 
tions,  but  only  as  eternal  and  concrete  in  God  the  absolute 
Reason,  all  whose  action  is  by  his  eternal  free  determination  in 
harmony  with  them,  and  therefore  they  are  concrete  in  the  con¬ 
stitution  and  evolution  of  the  universe.  If  we  admit  the  validity 
of  the  rational  intuition  of  these  principles,  in  which  the  light  of 
the  eternal  Reason  shines  in  our  own  consciousness,  we  have  a 
valid  basis  for  a  scientific  knowledge  of  the  universe.  “  In  thy 
light  we  see  light”  (Psalms  xxxvi.  9).  Otherwise  science,  and 
in  fact  all  human  knowledge,  are  baseless  and  unreal,  and  uni¬ 
versal  skepticism  is  the  necessary  issue.  It  follows  that  the  ideal 
has  an  independent  basis  in  reason  underlying  and  regulating  the 
constitution  and  evolution  of  the  universe,  and  this  is  the  neces¬ 
sary  postulate  for  any  scientific  knowledge  of  the  universe.  In 
this  sense  the  ideal  is  the  fundamental  reality  essential  to  any 
scientific  knowledge  of  the  real  or  factual. 

Admitting  this,  our  proper  course  is  to  examine  the  actual  con¬ 
stitution  and  evolution  of  the  physical  universe  and  the  constitution 
and  history  of  man.  Science  declares  the  progressive  evolution 
of  the  physical  system  in  accordance  with  the  principles  and  laws 
of  reason,  and  in  the  progressive  realization  of  a  rational  ideal ;  it 
discovers  also  in  all  races  of  men,  the  recognition  of  rational 
principles  of  truth  and  laws,  and  in  the  great  majority  of  them 


20 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


immense  progress  from  savagery  to  civilization  and  to  the  reali¬ 
zation  of  rational  ideals.  When  we  find  some  facts  seemingly 
incompatible  with  this  progress,  we  are  not  justified  in  denying 
the  supremacy  of  reason  in  the  development  of  the  physical  sys¬ 
tem  and  in  the  progress  of  man.  We  assume  that  unexplained 
facts  are  intelligible,  and  that  in  the  further  progress  of  knowledge 
man  will  see  that  they  are  in  harmony  with  reason  and  with  the 
progressive  realization  of  its  ideals.  Thus  waiting  for  further 
light  we  have  confidence  in  God  that  in  the  progress  of  knowl¬ 
edge  man  will  discover  that  all  God’s  works  and  ways  are  in 
harmony  with  and  progressively  realizing  the  highest  ideals  of 
perfection  possible  to  be  realized  by  God’s  righteous  and  benevo¬ 
lent  action  in  a  finite  universe  and  in  a  moral  system  of  rational 
free  agents. 

2.  That  the  ideal  and  spiritual  is  the  fundamental  reality  and 
has  an  independent  basis  in  reason  is  implied  in  the  objection 
itself.  The  objector  sits  in  judgment  on  the  constitution  and 
evolution  of  the  universe  and  the  constitution  and  history  of  man, 
and  declares  that  they  fail  to  realize  the  ideal.  Therein  he  him¬ 
self  assumes  that  there  is  a  standard  by  which  he  can  criticise  the 
actual  universe  and  its  history  and  judge  what  is  according  to 
rational  truth  and  law,  and  what  is  in  conflict  with  them,  what 
realizes  the  rational  ideals  of  perfection  and  well-being  and  what 
falls  short  of  such  realization.  In  the  very  statement  of  his  ob¬ 
jection  he  implies  that  there  is  a  supreme  and  universal  standard 
of  truth,  right,  perfection,  and  well-being  and  that  he,  as  a  rational 
person,  knows  that  standard  of  reason  and  thus  participates  in  the 
light  of  absolute  Reason,  eternal  in  God.  Thus  assuming  that 
Reason  is  at  the  basis  of  the  universe,  he  is  bound  to  expect  that 
the  evolution  of  the  universe  and  the  progress  of  man  will  be 
regulated  by  the  truths  and  laws  of  Reason  and  will  be  progres¬ 
sive  toward  the  realization  of  its  ideals.  His  objection  refutes 
itself. 

3.  In  assuming  that  Reason  is  fundamental  and  that  further 
progress  in  knowledge  will  show  the  reasonableness  of  God’s 
action  where  it  is  not  now  apparent,  theism  is  in  close  analogy 
with  science.  All  science  rests  on  the  postulate  that  the  universe 
is  scientifically  constituted  and  evolved.  Science  began  with 
observing  facts  and  trying  to  account  for  them  on  scientific  prin¬ 
ciples  ;  that  is,  to  ascertain  their  accordance  with  the  principles 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  2  1 


and  laws  of  reason  and  their  tendency  to  realize  its  ideals  and 
ends.  It  is  the  aim  and  endeavor  of  science  to  construct  a 
scientific  theory  of  observed  facts  by  showing  how  they  can  be 
accounted  for  and  explained  to  reason.  The  primitive  theories 
are  now  seen  to  be  fantastic,  but  they  were  the  best  attainable 
with  the  limited  knowledge  and  development  of  men  at  the  time. 
So,  from  age  to  age,  with  the  advancement  of  human  knowledge 
and  development,  old  theories  have  given  place  to  new  ones. 
This  has  been  inevitable  because  man’s  knowledge  of  the  universe 
must  be  incomplete  and  progressive.  The  history  of  theism  is 
closely  analogous.  Man  from  the  beginning  came  in  sight  of  the 
absolute  Being  revealed  in  the  universe  and  has  constructed 
theories  as  to  what  he  must  be.  The  primitive  theism  was  no 
more  erroneous  than  the  primitive  science.  Like  the  science  of 
man,  his  theism  has  been  clarified  and  developed  with  his  advanc¬ 
ing  knowledge  and  development.  And  this  rectification  of  errors 
and  dropping  of  false  theories  in  theism  is  no  more  an  evidence  that 
it  is  not  true  and  that  man  has  no  true  knowledge  of  God  than  is 
the  similar  process  in  science  an  evidence  that  science  is  not  true 
and  that  man  has  no  knowledge  of  the  universe.  With  the  elimi¬ 
nation  of  error  and  the  supplementing  of  defect,  both  theism  and 
science  carry  on  with  them  the  truth  already  discovered,  and  thus 
from  generation  to  generation  both  in  theism  and  in  science  true 
knowledge  increases.  And  in  the  enlargement  of  scientific  knowl¬ 
edge  we  discover  a  larger  revelation  of  God  and  data  for  a  larger 
knowledge  of  him  and  a  more  profound  reverence. 

Scientists  from  the  beginning  have  assumed  that  every  phe¬ 
nomenon  in  the  universe  is  scientifically  intelligible  and  explica¬ 
ble.  When  they  observe  facts  which  they  cannot  account  for  and 
explain  to  the  reason,  they  never  assume  that  they  are  essentially 
unreasonable  and  scientifically  inexplicable.  They  always  assume 
that  they  are  intelligible  and  that  with  larger  knowledge  and  further 
development  man  would  be  able  to  understand  and  explain  them. 
Theism  has  always  rested  in  precisely  the  same  position.  Where  the 
theist  has  observed  facts  which  seem  not  compatible  with  the  reign 
of  perfect  reason  in  good-will  regulated  in  wisdom  and  righteous¬ 
ness,  he  does  not  assume  that  they  are  essentially  irreconcilable 
with  reason ;  but  that  in  the  advancement  of  knowledge  and 
progress  of  man  they  will  be  accounted  for  as  in  harmony  with 
reason  and  with  the  progressive  realization  of  God’s  archetypal  ideal 


22 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


of  perfection  and  well-being.  In  this  the  attitude  of  the  theist  is 
the  same  with  that  of  the  scientist.  He  continues  to  trust  in 
God,  as  the  scientist  in  the  face  of  all  difficulties  and  mysteries 
continues  to  trust  in  reason  and  science. 

4.  Reason  sees,  not  only  that  the  rational  ideal  eternal  in  God 
is  the  fundamental  reality,  but  also  that  the  realization  of  it  in  the 
finite  and  the  revelation  of  God  therein  must  be  progressive. 
The  absolute  Spirit  cannot  make  a  complete  revelation  of  him¬ 
self  and  exhaust  his  resources  within  any  limits  of  space  and 
time.  If,  from  this  necessary  principle  of  reason,  we  look  out 
upon  the  actual  universe,  we  find  that,  in  fact,  it  has  been  pro¬ 
gressively  evolved  from  homogeneous  nebulous  matter  to  its 
present  complexity,  order,  and  sublimity.  And  the  progress  is 
discovered  to  be  by  epochs  :  the  beginning  of  motion  revealing 
mechanical  force ;  then,  in  ascending  grade,  chemical  affinity, 
vegetable  life,  sensitive  life,  rational  self-determining  persons. 

I  Physical  science  is  unable  to  account  for  the  existence  of  the 
homogeneous  matter,  or  for  the  beginning  of  motion,  or  for  the 
beginning  of  life,  or  for  the  coming-in  of  rational  self-determining 
persons,  without  recognizing  a  spiritual  power  above  the  universe 
causing  its  existence  and  evolution.  For  the  solution  of  its  own 
inevitable  problems  it  is  compelled  to  rest  on  theism.  God  ever 
immanent  in  the  universe  causes  and  directs  its  evolution.  When 
it  is  evolved  in  a  lower  stage  so  as  to  be  capable  of  manifesting 
and  sustaining  beings  endowed  with  power  of  a  higher  order,  God 
from  his  exhaustless  resources  individuates  such  beings  in  the 
universe.  When  he  thus  causes  rational  self-determining  persons 
to  exist,  no  finite  beings  of  a  higher  order  can  be  created,  because 
such  persons  are  in  the  likeness  of  God ;  and  God  cannot  bring 
into  existence  a  being  of  a  higher  order  than  himself.  Thereafter 
the  evolution  of  finite  rational  persons  begins  and  goes  on  forever. 

In  the  evolution  of  these  we  must  notice  two  important  differ¬ 
ences  from  the  evolution  of  the  physical  system.  It  is  not  the 
evolution  of  new  species  of  higher  order  crowding  out  inferior 
species,  while  the  individuals  perpetuating  the  species  perish.  It 
is  the  development  of  every  individual  person  to  realize  his  ideal 
perfection  and  well-being,  —  a  development  as  complete  as  the 
finiteness  and  the  self-determining  power  of  each  individual  per¬ 
mit,  —  and  to  be  continued  forever.  For  persons,  in  the  likeness 
of  God  as  spirit  once  brought  into  being,  and  under  his  gracious 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  23 


influences  coming  into  harmony  and  union  with  him  in  the  life  of 
love,  will  never  cease  to  exist.  Death  is  only  an  epoch  in  their 
evolution  to  their  highest  possible  perfection  and  well-being. 

The  other  peculiarity  distinguishing  evolution  in  the  moral  sys¬ 
tem,  which  is  the  sphere  of  rational  persons,  from  evolution  in 
the  physical  system  is  that  the  evolution  is  no  longer  exclusively 
by  force,  under  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  the  stronger 
overpowering  and  crowding  out  the  weaker.  It  is  by  moral  and 
spiritual  influences,  through  which  God  is  educating  and  develop¬ 
ing  personal  spirits  like  himself;  or,  after  they  have  sinned,  re¬ 
deeming  them  from  sin  and  renovating  them  to  the  life  of  love  in 
harmony  and  union  with  himself.  And  because  rational  persons 
are  self-determining,  these  influences  may  always  be  resisted. 
Here,  however,  in  analogy  with  the  evolution  of  the  physical 
system,  the  evolution  is  progressive  by  epochs.  The  individual 
is  to  grow  in  grace  and  knowledge,  and  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
to  grow,  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  after  that  the  full  corn  in 
the  ear. 

A  common  and  fatal  error  in  recent  attempts  to  harmonize  evo¬ 
lution  with  Christian  theism  is  that  these  two  essential  differences 
in  the  mode  of  the  evolution  of  the  personal  from  that  of  the  im¬ 
personal  are  entirely  overlooked.  The  inference  is  that  the  evo¬ 
lution  of  the  individual  Christian  and  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  is 
effected  only  on  the  principle  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  which, 
without  further  explanation,  would  be  understood  to  mean  that  it 
is  advanced  by  resistless  force.  It  is  possible  that  a  living  body 
like  that  of  man  might  be  the  product  of  evolution  after  animal 
life  through  the  creative  power  has  begun,  although  the  missing 
link,  the  anthropoid  animal,  has  not  yet  been  found.  But  it  is 
not  possible  that  rational  self-determining  persons  should  be  the 
product  of  materialistic  evolution  or  be  developed  to  spiritual  per¬ 
fection  without  the  intervention  of  God. 

Here  it  may  be  noticed,  that  not  only  is  man’s  knowledge  of 
the  significance  of  God’s  revelation  of  himself  already  made,  pro¬ 
gressive,  but  the  revelation  itself  is  progressive,  in  the  constitution 
and  evolution  of  the  physical  universe,  in  the  constitution  of  man, 
and  in  human  history  culminating  in  Christ  and  perpetuated  in 
the  Holy  Spirit. 

Therefore,  the  objection  that  the  ideal  is  not  realized  in  the 
real  is  not  valid,  because  the  realization  is  progressive  and,  there- 


24 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


fore,  incomplete.  It  is  as  if  one  should  enter  the  workshop  of 
the  inventor  of  the  watch,  where  as  yet  he  had  only  gathered  his 
materials  and  partly  shaped  them  and  they  were  lying  confusedly 
on  the  work-bench,  and  should  object  that  the  real  contradicted 
his  ideal.  In  fact,  in  every  hour  of  his  working,  he  is  making 
progress  toward  its  full  realization.  It  should  also  be  noticed 
that,  according  to  the  teaching  of  Mr.  Spencer  and  other  evolu¬ 
tionists,  the  evolution  of  the  universe  is  accordant  with  the  type 
of  vital  growth,  not  of  mechanical  construction.  Therefore,  God’s 
revelation  of  himself  in  the  progressive  realization  of  his  archetypal 
ideal  in  the  finite  universe,  is  not  according  to  the  analogy  or  type 
of  mechanical  construction,  but  of  vital  organic  growth.  He  is 
ever  infusing  energy  into  the  finite  as  the  cosmic  forces  act  on 
the  vital  germ  of  an  acorn  and  continuously  develop  it  by  vital 
processes  of  growth  into  a  majestic  oak.  This  is  also  the  type  by 
which  Christ  illustrates  the  growth  of  his  kingdom  by  the  growth 
of  wheat  through  its  successive  epochs,  and  of  each  individual,  in 
union  with  him  in  the  spiritual  life,  by  the  vital  organic  union  of 
a  branch  with  the  vine.  His  kingdom  grows  by  the  continual 
divine  quickening  and  developing  of  rational  beings  into  com¬ 
munion  and  union  with  himself  in  the  life  of  universal  love. 

5.  The  objection  recurs  in  a  more  specific  form,  —  that  while 
the  rational  ideal  presents  the  law  of  universal  love,  the  real  dis¬ 
closes  the  actual  prevalence  of  the  law  of  competition,  every  one 
selfishly  aiming  to  prevail  over  every  other.  Here  the  truth  is 
overlooked  that,  according  to  the  normal  constitution  of  man,  the 
two  principles,  sometimes  designated  the  altruistic  and  the  egois¬ 
tic,  are  complemental,  not  antagonistic  and  reciprocally  exclusive. 
They  are  both  included  in  the  Christian  law,  Thou  shalt  love  the 
Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  This 
requires  us  to  love  ourselves,  but  equally  to  love  our  neighbor, 
and  in  subordination  of  both  to  supreme  love  to  God.  Accord¬ 
ingly  reason  approves  of  both.  Man  acts  instinctively  in  self- 
preservation,  self-exertion,  and  self-development.  It  has  been 
taught  by  philosophers  that  the  radical  impulse  in  human  nature 
is  the  impulse  to  self-exertion.  Every  one  is  constitutionally  im¬ 
pelled  to  put  forth  his  powers  in  action  and  to  assert  himself  in 
their  exercise.  This  appears  in  the  infant  learning  to  use  its 
limbs  and  organs ;  it  is  the  impulse  of  the  child  to  play,  an  im¬ 
pulse  which  continues  active  through  life,  for  play  is  simply  the 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  25 


exertion  of  our  powers  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  exerting  them. 
This  self-exertion  with  self-assertion  is  essential  to  self-develop¬ 
ment  and  even  to  self-preservation.  It  is  in  itself  right  and  rea¬ 
sonable.  If  it  were  suppressed,  men  and  women  would  degenerate. 
All  theories  of  communism  and  socialism,  if  legitimately  carried 
out,  would  cause  degeneration.  Men  and  women  educated  to  be 
cared  for,  fed,  and  clothed  by  others,  to  have  their  line  of  work 
and  the  whole  employment  of  their  time  prescribed,  would  be 
educated  in  perpetual  babyhood,  to  be  provided  for,  nursed, 
tended,  and  directed  by  others.  They  would  become  weaklings 
and  puppets.  It  is  by  putting  forth  their  energies  that  they  are 
developed  to  true  manhood  and  womanhood. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  evil  of  selfish  competition  is  that  the 
impulse  to  self-preservation,  self-exertion,  and  self-assertion  has 
been  permitted  to  act  alone,  unmodified  by  equal  love  to  other 
men  and  supreme  love  to  God.  Thus  it  becomes  selfish  egoism. 
The  result  is  that  every  man  is  an  Ishmael,  his  hand  against  every 
man,  and  every  man’s  hand  against  him.  Here,  again,  men  de¬ 
generate,  and  true  progress  becomes  impossible. 

Therefore,  man  must  obey  the  Christian  law  of  universal  love  in 
its  large,  roundabout  comprehensiveness,  uniting  the  egoism  and 
the  altruism  as  complemental  manifestations  of  right  character  in 
subordination  to  supreme  love  to  God.  So  only  does  man  put 
forth  his  powers  in  harmony,  exert  his  energy  to  the  utmost,  in¬ 
sure  his  own  development  to  his  highest  perfection  and  well-being, 
and  at  the  same  time  accomplish  the  greatest  and  best  results  in 
promoting  the  progress  of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  true  pro¬ 
gress  and  welfare  of  society. 

Here  the  principle  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  is  seen  to  be 
still  in  force.  For  the  fittest,  the  most  fully  developed,  the  most 
powerful  in  influence,  is  he  whose  character  is  most  accordant 
with  the  Christian  law  of  love  in  all  its  comprehensiveness,  and 
he  is  the  one  whose  moral  perfection  and  well-being  are  insured 
forever. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  prevalence  of  selfish  competi¬ 
tion,  isolated  from  love  to  one’s  neighbor  and  from  supreme  love 
to  God,  is  due  to  man’s  sin,  to  his  wilful  deviation  from  the  nor¬ 
mal  line  of  his  development.  It  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose 
that  through  the  race-connection  selfish  competition  and  selfish 
indulgence  of  appetite  and  passion  through  all  generations  have 


2  6 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


weakened  and  perverted  man’s  moral  constitution.  Thus  this 
very  contrast  of  the  ideal  with  the  real  in  human  history  is  due  to 
the  sin  of  man.  It  is  not  chargeable  on  God  nor  is  it  any  argu¬ 
ment  against  Christian  theism.  On  the  contrary,  it  reveals  the  fact 
of  man’s  sinfulness  and  need  of  redemption  as  set  forth  in  the 
Bible,  and  the  fact  of  redemption  as  there  set  forth  as  worthy  of 
God,  who  does  all  that  divine  love  can  do,  consistently  with  wis¬ 
dom  and  righteousness,  to  deliver  men  from  sin  and  to  restore 
them  to  their  normal  character,  development,  and  condition  in 
harmony  and  union  with  God  in  the  life  of  universal  love. 

If  now  we  revert  to  the  fact  of  evolution,  we  perceive  that  even 
in  the  evolution  of  the  physical  system  the  principle  of  competi¬ 
tion  in  the  struggle  for  one’s  own  existence  does  not  stand  alone. 
We  find  altruistic  impulses  in  the  lowest  savagery.  We  find  the 
same  in  animals’  in  their  service  to  other  animals,  in  the  nurture 
and  care  of  offspring,  in  union  for  mutual  satisfaction  and  helpful¬ 
ness  in  flocks  and  herds,  and  in  many  ways  in  which  brutes 
express  satisfaction  in  the  society  of  one  another  and  mutual  sym¬ 
pathy  and  helpfulness.  And  everywhere  the  cosmic  forces  of  the 
universe  sustain  and  develop  both  animal  and  vegetable  life. 
Every  growing  lily,  every  blade  of  grass,  is  ministered  to  by  the 
sun,  by  the  ocean,  which  sends  up  water  into  the  air,  by  the  air 
and  its  winds,  by  electricity,  by  chemical  affinity.  And  each  plant 
has  the  service  of  all  the  cosmic  forces  as  completely  as  if  it  were 
the  only  one.  For  so  of  all  God’s  gifts,  like  the  sunshine  and  the 
air,  each  individual  has  all  while  detracting  nothing  from  any 
other.  These  are  types  in  the  physical  sphere  pointing  forward 
to  the  altruistic  element  in  the  love  required  in  the  spiritual 
sphere. 

We  may  perhaps  be  justified  in  tracing  the  analogy  further. 
Man  acquaints  himself  with  the  laws  regulating  the  action  of  elec¬ 
tricity,  light,  heat,  the  force  of  gravity  in  a  waterfall,  the  elasticity 
of  steam,  all  the  mechanical,  chemical,  and  vital  forces,  and  con¬ 
trols  and  directs  them  to  serve  him  in  doing  his  work.  It  is  only 
as  he  does  this  that  he  subdues  and  possesses  the  earth  and  its 
forces  and  insures  his  own  progressive  development  and  civiliza¬ 
tion.  The  difficulties  he  encounters  and  the  energy  put  forth  in 
surmounting  them  are  necessary  to  his  progressive  realization  of 
the  highest  ideal  of  his  power,  perfection,  and  well-being.  If  God 
did  everything  for  men  and  instead  of  them,  leaving  them  noth- 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  27 


ing  to  do  for  themselves,  they  would  never  be  anything  but  over¬ 
grown  babies.  Thus  it  is  continually  becoming  more  and  more 
evident  that,  whatever  the  privation  and  suffering,  the  difficulty 
and  struggle  incidental  to  attaining  the  result,  the  earth  and  all  its 
forces  and  resources  are  designed  for  the  use,  service,  and  devel¬ 
opment  of  rational  self-determining  persons,  and  so  to  the  ad¬ 
vancement  of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  realization  of  the 
highest  ideals  of  perfection  and  well-being.  Accordingly  the 
Bible  begins  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  with  declaring  God’s 
appointment  of  man  to  be  the  lord  of  nature  and  to  subdue  it  to 
his  own  service  and  use  ;  and  it  closes  with  the  vision  of  the  new 
earth  with  its  powers  and  beauties  developed  for  the  blessed 
abode  of  men.  It  also  teaches  that  this  subjection  of  all  things 
to  rational  ends  is  to  be  completed  only  in  connection  with  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Christ  and  the  development  of  his  kingdom 
(Heb.  ii.  7-9).  In  view  of  what  has  been  accomplished  in  the 
past,  we  can  hardly  assign  a  limit  to  the  control  of  the  forces  of 
nature  which  man  may  acquire  in  the  future. 

We  may  also  trace  an  analogy  of  God’s  moral  government  with 
his  revelation  of  himself  in  the  forces  of  nature  as  they  act  inde¬ 
pendently  of  their  control  by  man.  Electricity,  in  its  ordinary 
and  continuous  action  unseen  and  unnoticed,  is  always  energizing 
beneficently  through  all  nature.  But  under  given  conditions  it 
becomes  a  thunderbolt.  And  all  its  power  of  beneficence  lies  in  the 
fact  that  it  is  a  power  of  such  a  character  that  it  becomes  a  thun¬ 
derbolt  when  its  ordinary  quiet  circulation  is  disturbed.  The  sun 
with  its  light  and  heat  and  its  unseen  actinic  energy  quickens  and 
sustains  all  life  and  energy  and  makes  the  earth  habitable ;  but 
its  rays  when  concentrated  are  a  consuming  fire ;  and  its  power 
to  bless  is  precisely  the  power  which,  when  concentrated,  con¬ 
sumes  ;  if  it  could  not  be  a  consuming  fire,  it  would  have  no 
power  to  warm  the  earth  and  make  it  habitable.  The  atmosphere 
is  the  supporter  of  life  and  health ;  but  disturbed  in  its  currents  it 
becomes  a  devastating  tornado ;  and  it  would  have  no  beneficent 
power  if  it  had  not  the  power  under  given  conditions  to  become 
a  tornado.  . 

This  is  analogous  with  the  moral  system.  Its  fundamental  law 
is  the  law  of  love,  in  accordance  with  which  the  universe  is  con¬ 
stituted  and  evolved  and  all  God’s  providential  government  is 
administered.  If  any  man  lives  according  to  this  law,  all  things 


28 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


ill  the  universe  work  together  for  his  good.  If  any  one  disregards 
this  law  and  lives  in  self-sufficiency,  self-will,  self-seeking,  and 
self-glorifying,  nothing  in  the  universe  works  for  his  good ;  all 
things  work  together  for  evil  to  him.  And  it  is  precisely  because 
love  is  supreme,  and  the  universe  is  constituted  under  the  law  of 
love,  that  everything  works  evil  for  the  supremely  selfish,  and 
there  is  no  place  nor  time  in  the  universe  in  which  any  person 
who  does  not  live  the  life  of  love  can  be  blessed.  Here  we  must 
recognize  free  will.  God’s  love  fills  the  universe  as  sunshine  fills 
noonday.  His  grace  beams  even  on  sinners.  But  it  cannot  bless 
any  one  who  does  not  in  loving  trust  in  God  open  his  heart  to 
receive  the  gracious  love  and  so  in  responsive  love  renounce  self 
and  sin.  The  sunshine  as  it  comes  from  the  sun  is  good  and  full 
of  blessing.  But  its  power  to  bless  is  conditioned  on  the  recep¬ 
tivity  of  the  soil  on  which  it  falls.  If  it  falls  on  a  soil  cultivated 
and  sown  with  good  seed,  and  so  prepared  to  receive  its  quicken¬ 
ing,  it  quickens  the  seed  to  grow  and  bear  fruit.  If  it  falls  on  the 
desert  of  Sahara  it  only  intensifies  the  burning  heat  of  its  barren 
sand ;  if  it  falls  on  a  putrid  swamp  it  only  brings  out  its  pestilen¬ 
tial  miasma.  So  it  is  with  the  infinite  love  of  God.  If  it  falls  on 
one  who  trustfully  receives  it  and  follows  its  gracious  influence,  it 
abides  in  him,  quickening  him  to  all  the  beauty,  blessedness,  and 
spiritual  power  of  the  heavenly  life  of  love.  If  the  person  refuses 
and  resists  the  drawing  of  the  divine  love,  he  only  confirms  him¬ 
self  in  his  selfishness  and  sin,  and  makes  himself  incapable  of 
participating  in  the  life  of  love  and  of  realizing  his  true  perfection. 
It  is  only  in  this  sense  that  “  God  is  a  consuming  fire”  (Heb. 
xii.  29  ;  Deut.  iv.  24).  Because  the  universe  is  constituted  and 
evolved  under  the  supreme  and  unchangeable  law  of  love,  and 
because  God  is  love,  it  is  impossible  for  any  one  to  realize  perfec¬ 
tion  and  well-being  except  by  union  with  God  in  the  life  of  love. 

6.  Our  knowledge  of  the  real  shows  actual  progress  toward  the 
realization  of  a  higher  ideal  in  the  evolution  of  the  physical 
system,  in  the  creation  and  constitution  of  man,  and  in  his  his¬ 
torical  development.  Christ  is  the  centre  of  the  progress  of  man, 
first  in  preparation  for  his  coming,  and  then  issuing  from  him 
under  the  ministration  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  We  trace  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  spiritual  life  from  him,  and  with  it  the  progress  of 
civilization  in  the  increase  of  knowledge  and  in  inventions  enlarg¬ 
ing  man’s  control  of  the  powers  and  resources  of  nature.  And 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  29 


since  Christ  this  progress  has  been  pre-eminently  among  the 
Christian  peoples.  The  ideal  which,  through  the  revelation  of 
God  in  Christ,  we  have  of  the  possible  development  of  society 
and  its  transformation  into  the  kingdom  of  God  under  the  reign 
of  universal  love  is  not  yet  realized.  Yet  there  has  been  wondrous 
progress  toward  its  realization,  —  and  never  more  marked  than  in 
the  century  now  drawing  to  its  close.  This  is  conspicuous  in  the 
progress  in  science  and  in  industrial  inventions  and  arts,  giving 
men  command  of  the  resources  and  powers  of  nature,  more  and 
more  verifying  the  biblical  representation  that  God  has  appointed 
man  as  the  lord  of  nature  to  take  possession  of  its  resources  and 
to  command  the  service  of  its  forces,  opening  in  industrial  pur¬ 
suits  a  sphere  of  achievement  demanding  the  exercise  of  man’s 
highest  powers  and  attainments  and  so  making  industrial  labor 
honorable,  and  opening  in  it  a  sphere  for  the  noblest  moral  and 
spiritual  character  in  the  service  of  man  in  the  life  of  love.  Great 
progress  has  also  been  made  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  develop¬ 
ment  of  man.  Such,  for  example,  is  the  progress  in  the  recogni¬ 
tion  and  maintenance  of  the  rights  of  man,  not  resting  on  rank 
but  inherent  in  the  raw  material  of  humanity,  the  establishment 
of  constitutional  governments  by  representatives  of  the  people, 
the  abolition  of  feudal  serfdom  in  Russia,  the  abolition  of  negro 
slavery  throughout  all  Christendom,  the  decline  of  the  warlike 
spirit,  the  disposition  to  settle  international  differences  by  arbitra¬ 
tion,  the  looming  up  of  the  idea  of  a  federation  of  all  nations,  the 
general  turning  of  attention  to  the  right  methods  of  charity  and 
correction  and  to  the  right  treatment  of  men  and  women  em¬ 
ployed  in  work  for  wages,  and  the  many  associations  in  this  and 
other  Christian  nations,  not  only  local  but  national  and  inter¬ 
national,  for  the  relief  of  the  suffering  and  needy,  for  the  correc¬ 
tion  of  abuses,  for  the  spread  and  increased  efficiency  of 
education,  for  the  right  solution  of  the  problems  of  sociology, 
and  the  right  applications  of  the  teaching  of  Christ  and  the 
Christian  law  of  love  in  all  its  bearings  to  the  life  of  the  individual 
and  the  family,  and  to  the  institutions,  laws,  and  usages  of  society.  - 
And  in  the  furtherance  of  these  great  ends  of  Christian  benefi¬ 
cence  we  may  notice  the  immense  amount  of  money  given  by 
the  wealthy  for  the  promotion  of  education  and  other  great 
interests  of  humanity,  the  large  contributions  yearly  made  by 
the  people  for  Christian  missions  at  home  and  abroad  and  for 


30 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


innumerable  beneficent  enterprises,  the  growing  demand  for 
Christian  unity,  and  the  decay  of  bigotry,  intolerance,  and 
persecution. 

If  an  intelligent  person  from  some  other  planet  had  visited  the 
earth  when  it  was  inhabited  by  beings  of  no  higher  order  than 
such  monsters  as  the  ichthyosauri  or  plesiosauri,  he  might  have 
argued  that  the  real  was  incompatible  with  the  ideal  and  that  the 
earth  could  not  be  the  creation  of  a  wise  and  beneficent  God. 
Professor  Moses  Stuart  used  to  say  of  the  geological  theories  of 
his  day,  that  he  did  not  believe  that  the  time  ever  was  when  God 
reigned  over  nothing  but  bullfrogs.  We  now  know,  from  observa¬ 
tion  of  the  progress  actually  made,  that  such  a  supposed  visitor 
from  another  planet  in  those  geological  periods  would  have  been 
justified  in  recognizing  the  fact  that  God’s  self-revelation  in  the 
finite  must  be  progressive,  —  that  the  ideal  is  from  epoch  to  epoch 
being  more  fully  realized  in  the  universe,  and  that  wherein  he 
could  not  see  the  ideal  realized,  he  could  trust  in  God  that  he 
was  doing  and  would  continue  to  do  all  that  wisdom,  righteous¬ 
ness  and  good-will  require  and  permit,  to  realize  the  highest  ideal 
of  perfection  and  well-being  possible  in  a  finite  universe  and  in  a 
system  of  finite  rational  and  self-determining  persons.  And 
wherein  we  now  see  that  the  ideal  is  not  realized  in  the  real,  we 
are  justified  in  trusting  God  that  it  is  in  the  process  of  progressive 
realization.  And  it  is  our  privilege  and  duty  to  be  workers  to¬ 
gether  with  God  in  promoting  its  realization  by  the  advancement 
of  his  kingdom  and  bringing  in  the  reign  of  universal  love.  This 
agency  of  man  is  essential  in  the  advancement  of  God’s  kingdom. 
It  is  impossible  in  the  very  nature  of  a  moral  system,  without  the 
willing  co-operation  of  free  agents  in  it,  for  God  to  develop  it, 
either  in  the  progressive  realization  of  the  perfection  of  individu¬ 
als  and  of  society,  or  in  extending  his  kingdom  among  all  peo¬ 
ples.  And  this  is  another  factor  in  the  answer  to  the  objection. 
The  realization  on  earth  of  the  ideal  is  hindered,  not  only  by  the 
wilful  sin  of  men  in  resisting  the  gracious  influences  of  God  and 
opposing  the  progress  of  his  kingdom,  but  also  by  the  failure  of 
true  Christians  to  exert  their  energies  for  the  advancement  of 
God’s  kingdom  in  the  wisest  methods,  with  the  purest  self-con¬ 
secrating  love  and  the  highest  efficiency. 

7.  The  scriptures  recognize  this  temporary  discrepancy  be¬ 
tween  the  ideal  and  the  real  and  explain  it  as  consistent  with 


PROVIDENTIAL  GOVERNMENT,  AND  REDEMPTION  3 1 

God’s  loving,  wise,  and  righteous  purpose  progressively  realizing 
the  ideal.  They  recognize  the  principles  that  man’s  knowledge 
of  God  as  the  absolute  Being  can  never  be  complete ;  that  God’s 
revelation  of  himself  in  the  finite  must  be  always  progressive  and 
never  complete ;  that  man  in  his  free  agency  has  resisted  God’s 
redeeming  grace  and  deviated  from  the  way  of  his  normal  de¬ 
velopment  ;  that,  even  when  men  are  born  of  the  Spirit,  they  are 
not  developed  at  once  to  perfection  of  character,  but  must  grow 
in  the  grace  and  knowledge  of  the  God  in  Christ  and  in  spiritual 
life  and  power ;  and  that  God  in  dealing  with  men  makes  allow¬ 
ance  for  their  constitutional  limitations  and  their  unavoidable 
environment,  and  “  if  there  be  first  a  willing  mind,  it  is  accepted 
according  to  that  a  man  hath  and  not  according  to  that  he  hath 
not”  (2  Cor.  viii.  12).  Therefore,  in  view  of  unresolved  diffi¬ 
culties  and  the  as  yet  incomplete  realization  of  the  grand  ideal, 
we  are  to  rest  in  perfect  peace  having  our  minds  stayed  on  God, 
accepting  the  assurance  of  Christ,  “  What  I  do  thou  knowest  not 
now,  but  thou  shalt  understand  hereafter”  (John  xiii.  7). 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE 

We  have  already  ascertained  that  God  has  constituted  and  is 
governing  the  universe  according  to  the  principles  and  laws  of 
reason  and  for  the  realization  of  the  ends  of  perfect  wisdom  and 
love ;  and  that  all  these  ends  are  to  be  realized  in  the  kingdom 
of  Christ  continuously  existing  and  growing  on  earth  and  passing 
onward  to  its  full  and  never-ending  glory  in  the  heavenly  and 
immortal  state. 

It  is  now  to  be  shown  also  that  God  has  so  constituted  and  is 
governing  the  universe  that  all  things  in  it  work  together  for  good 
to  every  one  who  trusts  God  and,  being  united  to  him  by  faith, 
is  living  the  life  of  universal  love  in  obedience  to  the  law  of  God. 
This  is  the  doctrine  of  Special  Providence.  God’s  providential 
care  of  every  such  person  is  special  in  the  sense  that  it  insures 
that  all  things  shall  work  for  his  personal  good ;  and  that  thus  he 
is  justified  in  the  confidence,  not  merely  that  God  orders  all 
things  in  wisdom  and  love  for  the  general  good  in  the  advance¬ 
ment  of  his  kingdom,  but  also  so  that  all  things  which  come  to 
pass  under  the  divine  providential  government,  and  whatever 
may  befall  him  in  doing  his  duty,  will  surely  promote  his  true 
well-being.1  This  is  special  providence  in  the  only  sense  in 
which  the  Bible  recognizes  it  or  in  which  it  has  any  reasonable 
significance. 

i.  The  good  promised  is  the  true  good  estimated  by  reason 
according  to  its  unchanging  norms  as  having  real  worth,  as  being 
an  object  of  pursuit  and  a  source  of  enjoyment  worthy  of  a 
rational  being.  It  is  true  well-being,  as  distinguished  from  hap¬ 
piness  or  enjoyment  from  whatever  source,  measured  only  by 

1  Rom.  viii.  17,  28-39;  1  Cor.  iii.  22;  1  Pet.  iii.  12,  13;  Psalm  i. ;  xxxii. 
10;  lxxxiv.  11;  xci. 


SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE  33 

quantity  as  to  duration  and  intensity,  which  Hedonism  presents 
as  the  ultimate  object  of  all  human  action. 

First,  the  good  promised  is  the  essential  good.  This  consists 
in  the  perfection  of  the  person  in  moral  character,  —  in  the  right 
and  harmonious  development  of  all  his  powers  and  susceptibilities 
and  their  normal  exercise,  —  in  his  consequent  harmony  with  God, 
with  himself,  and  with  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the  universe, 
and  the  happiness  incident  thereto. 

It  is,  secondly,  the  relative  good.1  The  doctrine  of  special 
providence  is  that,  to  the  man  thus  in  harmony  with  God,  with 
himself,  and  with  the  constitution  of  the  universe,  all  things  are 
relative  good.  That  is,  all  circumstances  and  conditions,  all 
possessions  and  privations,  all  events  whatever,  being  met  by  him 
in  faith  in  God  and  love  to  God  and  man,  are  means  or  occasions 
of  his  coming  into  closer  union  with  God  by  faith,  of  his  forming 
and  confirming  right  character  by  right  action,  of  the  normal 
development  of  all  his  powers  and  capacities  and  so  of  insuring 
his  true  well-being.  Paul  testifies,  “  we  know  that  all  things  work 
together  for  good  to  them  who  love  God.”  Here,  then,  is  a  posi¬ 
tion  in  which,  when  a  man  attains  it,  all  the  powers  of  the 
universe  converge  on  him  to  bless  him.  Lay  hold  of  God’s 
redeeming  grace  and  put  yourself  in  union  with  him  and  all  the 
agencies  in  the  universe  will  serve  you.  Paul  says,  “  As  much  as 
in  me  is,  I  am  debtor  both  to  Greeks  and  to  Barbarians,  both  to 
the  wise  and  to  the  unwise.”  Let  a  man  acknowledge  and  pay 
this  debt  and  all  that  is  in  the  universe  will  work  together  to 
serve  him.  Christ  announces  the  law :  “  He  that  will  be  great 
among  you  let  him  be  your  servant ;  ”  greatness  for  service,  and 
greatness  by  service.  Become  a  servant  of  men  in  the  spirit  of 
Christ  and  you  are  exalted  to  the  mastery  and  possession  of  the 
universe.  As  Christ  came  as  a  servant  and  was  exalted  to  reign, 
all  who  serve  in  the  spirit  of  Christ  are  exalted  to  reign  with  him. 
This  is  the  highest  sense  in  which  man  is  lord  of  nature  ;  and,  as 
the  writer  of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  explains,  this  lordship  is 
perfectly  attained  by  man  only  in  and  through  Christ,2  in  self- 
renouncing  service  like  his.  This  is  “  the  secret  of  Jesus  ”  : 

“  He  that  findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  loseth  his  life 
for  my  sake  shall  find  it.”  The  doctrine,  therefore,  implies  no 

1  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  271-278. 

2  Heb.  ii.  6-18. 


VOL.  11.  —  3 


34 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


divine  guarantee  that  the  Christian  man  shall  gain  wealth,  or 
office,  or  popularity,  or  fame,  nor  that  he  shall  be  exempt  from 
privation  or  suffering,  from  reproach  or  persecution,  from  sick¬ 
ness  or  death.  It  guarantees  only  that  meeting  these  aright  he 
is  more  and  more  “  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God  ”  and  dis¬ 
ciplined,  educated,  and  developed  to  the  perfection  of  his  own 
being  and  the  fulness  and  harmony  of  his  own  powers.  If  the 
man  is  tempted  to  sin,  his  resistance  of  the  temptation  sharpens 
his  spiritual  discernment  and  trains  him  to  spiritual  firmness  and 
strength.  If  he  is  persecuted  unto  death  it  only  makes  him 
more  like  Christ  and  glorifies  him  in  the  noble  army  of  the 
martyrs.  Death,  in  whatever  form  it  comes,  only  crowns  him 
with  glory,  honor,  and  immortality.  So  Paul,  in  that  passage  in 
which  Christian  faith  and  hope  reach  their  most  triumphant 
utterance,  enumerates  all  the  powers  of  evil  that  can  afflict  or 
oppose  the  Christian  man,  and  declares  that  they  cannot  separate 
us  from  God’s  love  in  Christ.1  Accordingly  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  the  fact  that  Christians  endure  affliction  and  sorrow 
painful  to  bear  is  fully  recognized,  —  but  only  as  God’s  chastening 
in  which  his  special  providence  is  strongly  affirmed.  “  All  chas¬ 
tening  seemeth  for  the  present  to  be  not  joyous,  but  grievous ; 
yet  afterward  it  yieldeth  peaceable  fruit  unto  them  who  have 
been  exercised  thereby,  even  the  fruit  of  righteousness.”  2  The 
doctrine  is  that  in  doing  his  duty  in  faith  and  love  nothing 
can  harm  a  person,  but  all  things  work  for  his  good.  “  Who  is 
he  that  will  harm  you  if  ye  be  zealous  of  that  which  is  good?  ”  3 
We  have  already  seen  the  significance  and  importance,  in 
theodicy  and  in  the  right  conception  of  God’s  government,  of 
the  fundamental  fact  that  the  universe  was  not  completed  at  a 
stroke  in  its  creation,  but  is  always  being  evolved  by  God  ever 
immanent  in  it  in  the  progressive  expression  and  revelation  of 
his  eternal  wisdom,  love,  and  power.  Now  from  the  point  of 
view  of  God’s  special  providence  we  see  the  significance  and 
importance  of  this  fact  in  explanation  of  the  life  and  history  of 
man.  On  earth  man  enters  on  a  life  full  of  opportunities  for 
attaining  true  and  everlasting  well-being.  If  he  accepts  God’s 
grace  offering  to  quicken,  guide,  and  sustain  him  in  using  these 
opportunities,  the  earth  becomes  to  him  a  school  in  which  God 
is  disciplining,  training,  and  educating  him  to  the  formation  and 

i  Rom.  viii.  28-39.  2  Heb.  xii.  1— 1 3.  3  1  Pet.  iii.  13. 


SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE 


35 


confirmation  of  right  character,  to  effective  working  with  God  in 
the  advancement  of  his  kingdom,  to  the  normal  development  of 
his  powers  and  capacities,  and  so  to  his  true  well-being.  And 
this  is  to  be  consummated  after  death  in  the  life  immortal,  in  his 
growing  richer  in  the  acquisition  of  the  imperishable  treasures  of 
heaven,  in  his  complete  harmony  and  union  with  God  in  perfected 
faith  and  love  fixed  in  confirmed  character,  in  the  perfect  and 
harmonious  development  of  his  powers  and  capacities,  in  scope 
for  their  full  and  normal  exercise  in  achievements  in  the  service 
of  God  and  of  God’s  creatures,  and  in  perpetual  advance  in  the 
knowledge  of  God.  And  God  will  forever  be  perpetuating  the 
energy  of  his  love  and  enlarging  its  scope  in  the  progress  of  his 
kingdom  and  thus  more  and  more  revealing  his  glory  in  unnum¬ 
bered  worlds  and  successive  aeons  forever.  All  this  is  real,  al¬ 
though  to  be  accomplished  in  ways  dimly  known  to  us.  “  Now 
are  we  children  of  God,  and  it  is  not  yet  made  manifest  what  we 
shall  be.  But  we  know  that,  if  he  shall  be  manifested,  we  shall 
be  like  him ;  for  we  shall  see  him  as  he  is.”  1  Thus  death  is  no 
longer  “  the  king  of  terrors  ”  ;  Christ  has  conquered  death,  and 
the  Christian  triumphs  over  it  in  him.  Death  is  not  an  evil  and 
that  great  objection  to  the  goodness  of  God  is  decisively  an¬ 
swered.  Looking  out  on  God’s  action  from  our  finiteness,  we 
see  presented  to  the  divine  mind  the  alternative  either  at  the 
beginning  to  fill  this  small  planet  with  all  the  people  it  can  nour¬ 
ish  and  let  them  live  on  it  forever,  or  to  people  it  with  successive 
generations  of  men.  The  limitation  here  is  not  in  God  but  is 
the  finiteness  inseparable  from  created  being.  If  this  life  were 
all  of  man’s  existence  it  would  be  difficult  for  us  to  decide  which 
side  of  the  alternative  should  be  chosen.  But,  in  view  of  immor¬ 
tality  and  the  opportunities  for  everlasting  well-being  which  this 
life  presents,  it  is  plain  that  the  existence  of  successive  genera¬ 
tions  makes  it  possible  to  insure  the  higher  good  and  the  more 
full  revelation  of  the  wisdom,  love,  and  power  of  God.  Instead  of 
a  single  generation  living  on  earth  forever,  God  brings  in  a  continual 
influx  of  new  life  ;  he  makes  the  earth  a  school  to  quicken,  edu¬ 
cate  and  fit  for  a  higher  life  and  work ;  he  freely  admits  to  its 
privileges  all  who  are  willing  to  put  themselves  under  his  dis¬ 
cipline  and  instruction ;  and  when  the  course  of  education  which 
he  prescribes  for  each  one  is  completed,  the  pupil  is  graduated, 

i  John  iii.  2. 


36 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


and  the  day  of  his  death  is  the  commencement  of  his  higher  life, 
which  is  life  everlasting.  If  God  had  filled  the  world  with  people 
who  never  die,  it  would  be  like  a  college  magnificently  endowed, 
into  which  one  class  only  was  to  be  admitted,  the  members 
of  which  were  to  remain  there  in  their  pupilage  always.  But 
the  kingdom  of  God  beginning  on  earth,  perpetuated  after  death 
in  the  life  everlasting,  and  continually  increased  by  the  multitudes 
passing  into  it  from  successive  generations,  is  the  sum  of  all  finite 
perfection  and  good  and  the  end  which  God  is  continuously  and 
progressively  realizing  in  the  history  of  the  world.  This  kingdom 
of  God,  with  its  perpetual  influx  of  new  life,  flowing  on  and  over 
into  the  eternal  abode  of  the  blessed,  is  the  river  of  life,  described 
in  the  Bible,  springing  up  in  the  fountain  opened  by  Christ  for 
sin  and  uncleanness,  flowing  forth  from  under  the  threshold  of 
the  Sanctuary,  widening  and  deepening  as  it  rolls  on,  —  fed,  as 
Christ  intimates,  by  the  living  water  springing  up  in  every  Chris¬ 
tian  heart  and  flowing  forth  unto  everlasting  life,  —  appearing  at 
last  in  the  Paradise  of  God  as  the  river  of  the  water  of  life,  with 
not  merely  one  tree  of  life  guarded  from  all  approach,  but  trees 
of  life  along  both  its  banks,  always  full  of  fruit  and  with  leaves  for 
the  healing  of  the  nations.1 

A  third  point  to  be  noticed  is  that  the  good  guaranteed  in 
special  providence  is  positive  good,  not  a  mere  warding-off  of 
evil  or  deliverance  from  it.  Christian  love  transforms  privation, 
suffering,  and  all  opposition  and  temptation  by  the  powers  of 
wickedness  into  good,  as  the  sun  transforms  what  falls  into  it  into 
fuel  increasing  its  own  light  and  heat.2  Paul  says  “  in  all  these 
things  we  are  more  than  conquerors.” 

Fourthly,  the  Christian  trusting  and  serving  God  in  love  is,  in 
all  conditions  and  all  work,  conscious  of  the  approval  and  com¬ 
placency  of  God  and  blessed  in  the  very  exercise  of  love  and  in 


1  Zech.  xiii.  i  ;  Joel  iii.  18;  Ezek.  xlvii.  1-12;  John  iv.  14;  vii.  38;  Rev. 
xxii.  1,  2. 

2  Professor  Young,  of  the  College  of  New  Jersey,  says  the  sun  gives  heat 
enough  to  melt  fifty  feet  of  ice  over  its  whole  surface  in  a  minute,  nearly 
a  foot  in  a  second.  One  foot  of  ice  over  the  sun’s  surface  would  -make  a 
cylinder  of  ice  nearly  two  and  a  half  miles  in  diameter  reaching  from  the 
earth  to  the  sun.  This  column,  if  propelled  into  the  sun  with  sufficient 
rapidity,  would  all  be  melted  in  one  second.  And  it  would  not  only  be 
melted  but  decomposed  in  the  intense  heat,  supporting  the  combustion  and 
feeding  it  with  fuel.  (Christian  Philosophy  Quarterly,  Jan.  1882,  p.  18.) 


SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE 


37 


the  very  act  of  trusting  and  serving  him.  It  is  not  merely  that 
he  looks  forward  to  future  blessedness  in  heaven,  nor  that  he 
calculates  the  effect  of  his  present  trials  as  education  and  disci¬ 
pline  for  future  development  and  well-being.  He  is  blessed  al¬ 
ready.  He  has  in  his  heart  “  the  peace  of  God  which  passeth  all 
understanding.”  In  prosperity  he  accepts  all  acquisitions  as  gifts 
of  God’s  grace.  In  adversity  he  accepts  privation  and  suffering 
as  the  chastening  of  a  loving  father. 

“  Behind  a  frowning  providence 
He  hides  a  smiling  face.” 

It  is  better  that  the  providential  event  frown,  while  the  smile  is 
on  the  father’s  face,  than  that  the  brightest  smile  of  prosperity  be 
on  the  event  if  the  father’s  face  frowns.  Before  we  rejoice  in  our 
acquisitions  we  should  consider  whether  they  come  with  God’s 
blessing.  And  the  Christian  is  blessed  in  his  Christian  work, 
rejoicing  to  be  counted  worthy  even  to  suffer  for  Christ’s  sake. 
Thus  the  Christian  is,  in  an  important  sense,  independent  of  out¬ 
ward  events.  Nothing  can  separate  him  from  God’s  love  in 
Christ  Jesus  our  Lord.  He  is  going  to  heaven  with  heaven  in 
his  heart.  For  in  heaven,  “  All  that  life  is  love.” 

2.  In  giving  and  withholding  good  in  his  providential  govern¬ 
ment  God  individualizes  and  discriminates  on  the  basis  of 
character. 

To  him  who  by  faith  in  God  has  come  into  his  normal  union 
with  God,  who  is  willingly  receptive  of  his  gracious  influence  and 
is  thus  living  in  faith  and  universal  love,  God  in  his  providential 
government  brings  good  and  only  good.  This,  as  we  have  seen, 
is  the  scriptural  doctrine.  It  is  implied  in  God’s  moral  govern¬ 
ment,  which  awards  evil  as  punishment  to  evil-doers  and  good 
to  those  who  are  good.  It  is  implied  in  the  subordination  of 
providential  government  to  moral.  It  is  implied  in  the  nature 
of  the  good,  essential  and  relative,  as  already  explained. 

To  the  persisting  sinner  all  things  work  together  for  evil. 
Nothing  can  bring  blessing  to  him.  The  very  enjoyment  which 
he  has  in  sin  is  a  curse  to  him  because  it  entices  him  to  continued 
sin  and  inflames  his  sinful  desires  and  passions.  The  gratification 
of  his  wishes,  the  success  of  his  plans,  only  feed  the  fires  which 
consume  him.  He  is  like  a  bomb-shell,  which,  though  it  rises 
so  high  and  draws  the  wondering  gaze  to  its  brilliant  flight,  yet 
carries  in  itself  the  burning  elements  of  its  own  destruction. 


38 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


The  universe  being  constituted  as  it  is,  there  is  in  it  no  place 
and  no  time  in  which  it  is  possible  for  any  one  persisting  in  sin 
to  be  blessed,  to  attain  any  real  good,  to  realize  well-being  in 
a  life  of  selfishness. 

It  follows  that  nothing  can  bring  essential  evil  on  a  person 
except  his  own  sin.  The  assurance  that  all  things  work  together 
for  good  is  limited  to  those  who  love  God,  and  thus  forsake  sin. 
The  person’s  own  sin  is  thus  excluded  from  the  all  things  which 
work  for  his  good.  All  other  things  may  work  for  his  good. 
His  sin  is  excluded,  set  apart  by  itself  as  the  only  essential  evil, 
which  is  not  good  in  itself  and  cannot  become  even  a  relative 
good  to  him  who  commits  it,  —  which  is  evil  in  itself  and  in  all  its 
outcome,  —  which  debars  the  sinner  from  all  true  good,  and  trans¬ 
forms  into  relative  evil  even  the  good  itself  which  he  touches  or 
which  touches  him,  —  which  is  in  him  and  to  him  evil  and  only 
evil  continually. 

When  opportunity  was  given  to  Midas  to  ask  and  obtain  from 
Jupiter  the  one  thing  which  he  most  desired,  he  asked  that 
everything  he  touched  should  be  turned  into  gold.  He  obtained 
a  fatal  gift  which  doomed  him  to  starvation.  So  every  desire 
of  a  heart  ruled  by  selfishness  is  for  a  fatal  gift  which  dooms  its 
possessor  to  spiritual  starvation  and  death.  On  the  contrary,  the 
Christian  finds  in  self-renouncing  faith  and  love  the  divine  talis¬ 
man  which  turns  whatever  he  touches  and  whatever  touches  him, 
not  into  gold,  but  into  spiritual  life,  power,  and  blessedness. 

Here,  again,  we  see  that  God  in  his  providential  government 
and  purpose  recognizes  the  real  agency  of  man  in  effecting 
results,  and  conditions  his  own  action  on  the  action  of  man. 

The  doctrine  of  special  providence  emphasizes  the  fact  that, 
in  all  God’s  providential  government  from  beginning  to  end  and 
through  and  through,  he  individualizes  and  discriminates  among 
persons  on  the  basis  of  character  in  the  award  of  good  or  evil. 
It  shuts  out  the  sentimentality  which  is  offended  at  the  thought 
that  God  treats  the  righteous  any  differently  from  the  wicked. 

Here  an  objection  is  urged  that  God  maketh  his  sun  to  rise 
on  the  evil  and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and 
on  the  unjust.  This  objection,  however,  is  valid  only  against  con¬ 
ceptions  of  God’s  providential  government  the  falsity  of  which 
has  been  exposed.  God  recognizes  the  real  agency  of  man 
determining  his  own  destiny  to  good  or  evil.  God  in  his  self- 


SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE 


39 


moved  and  universal  good-will  sends  the  sunshine  and  the  rain 
on  the  evil  and  on  the  good.  But  they  determine  for  themselves 
what  use  they  will  make  of  his  gifts.  So  in  redemption  God 
seeks  to  draw  men  to  himself  in  love,  and  his  grace  is  free  to  all. 
But  whether  or  not  his  redeeming  love  will  secure  the  renewal 
and  well-being  of  any  person  depends  on  the  person’s  own  action, 
accepting,  trusting,  and  following  God’s  gracious  influence,  or 
refusing  and  resisting  it.  Special  providence  implies  discrimina¬ 
tion  as  to  character.  It  insures  the  true  good  to  every  one  who 
lives  the  life  of  universal  love,  and  withholds  it  from  every  one 
who  lives  in  supreme  selfishness. 

3.  In  God’s  providential  government,  good  or  evil  is  brought 
on  a  man  by  the  agency  of  himself  and  of  the  other  second 
causes  acting  under  laws  fixed  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe, 
and  not  merely  by  the  immediate  efficiency  of  God’s  will. 

The  universe  is  a  system  of  things  working  together  in  the 
realization  of  the  ends  of  divine  wisdom  and  love.  In  a  large 
and  complicated  system  of  machinery,  as  in  a  cotton  mill,  all  the 
wheels  aild  cogs,  all  the  levers  and  bands,  are  working  together  to 
accomplish  the  end  for  which  the  whole  machinery  was  made. 
So  long  as  any  wheel  or  other  part  of  the  machinery  remains  in 
its  proper  place  doing  its  appropriate  work,  all  the  machinery  —  the 
great  wheel  which  moves  the  whole,  and  all  the  parts  which  transmit 
and  apply  the  power  —  is  working  together  to  move  it  in  its  proper 
course  and  to  propel  it  in  its  appropriate  work  in  accomplishing 
the  design  of  the  whole.  But  if  any  wheel,  or  cog,  or  lever  gets 
out  of  place,  then  it  becomes  an  obstruction  and  all  the  machin¬ 
ery  combines  to  crush  it  or  cast  it  out.  The  spiritual  system  is 
analogous  to  this.  If  a  man  is  in  his  proper  place  working  in 
harmony  with  the  universe  to  promote  the  great  design  of  the 
creator,  all  the  powers  of  the  universe  work  together  to  help  and 
bless  him  in  his  appropriate  wrork.  But  if  he  is  out  of  his  proper 
place,  if,  isolated  in  selfishness,  he  is  working  against  the  designs 
of  God’s  wisdom  and  love  in  his  kingdom,  then  all  the  powers  of 
the  universe  combine  to  crush  him  and  cast  him  out.  And  this  is 
the  scriptural  conception.  When  Paul  says  “  All  things  work 
together  for  good,”  he  does  not  speak  of  agencies  acting  in  isola¬ 
tion,  but  of  all  things  working  together  in  the  unity  of  a  system 
for  a  common  end,  and  of  course  working  together  against  what¬ 
ever  hinders  or  obstructs  them. 


40 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


It  follows  that  God  does  not  interrupt  the  course  of  nature  and 
the  fixed  order  and  law  of  the  universe  in  order  to  bring  good  to 
one  and  evil  to  another.  Whatever  comes  from  God  is  the  ex¬ 
pression  of  perfect  wisdom  and  love.  It  is  good.  It  is  full  of 
the  possibilities  of  blessing.  But  whether  it  brings  good  or  evil 
to  the  person  to  whom  it  comes,  depends  on  his  reception,  or  his 
resistance  and  rejection,  of  it.  The  same  love  which  is  quicken¬ 
ing  and  cheering  to  him  who  accepts  it  with  an  answering  love,  is 
“  a  consuming  fire  ”  1  to  him  who  refuses  and  resists.  And  the 
agencies  which  are  the  media  through  which  good  comes  from 
God  to  the  righteous  are  the  same  through  which  evil  comes  to 
the  wicked.  It  may  come  to  the  wicked  man  through  the 
medium  of  wealth  and  honor ;  and  “  the  prosperity  of  fools  shall 
destroy  them.”  Or  it  may  come  through  adversity,  and  he  will 
curse  God.  But  whether  prosperity  or  adversity  befalls  the 
righteous,  he  so  receives  it  in  the  love  that  trusts  and  serves  that 
he  finds  hidden  in  it  good  and  the  blessing  of  God.  Here  also 
nature  presents  analogies.  The  nerves  when  rightly  used  and  in 
health  are  the  source  of  pleasure  ;  abused  by  a  drunkard  they 
cause  the  horrors  of  delirium  tremens.  And  in  our  spiritual  con¬ 
stitution,  the  conscience  —  the  nerves  of  the  moral  being  —  when 
obeyed  is  the  source  of  the  highest  joy  in  the  consciousness  of 
well-doing,  and  to  the  sinner  the  source  of  the  most  terrific  suf¬ 
fering  in  the  agony  of  remorse.  Riches  justly  gained  and  benefi¬ 
cently  used  are  full  of  blessing ;  covetously  and  unjustly  gained 
and  used,  “  their  rust  shall  eat  your  flesh  as  it  were  fire.”  2  To  a 
persistent  sinner  the  universe  itself  is  the  prison  of  hell  from 
which  he  cannot  escape ;  go  where  he  will  in  it  all  its  powers  are 
working  together  against  him  for  evil.  To  one  who  trusts  and 
serves  God  in  love  the  universe  is  the  heavenly  home,  —  for  all  its 
powers  work  for  him  for  good.  And  the  same  glowing  love  of 
God  makes  heaven  or  hell,  according  as  men  receive  it  in  answer¬ 
ing  love  or  resist  it  in  self-sufficiency,  self-will,  self-seeking,  and 
self-glorifying. 

Therefore  God  does  not  stand  outside  of  the  universe,  trying 
to  get  into  it  a  blessing  or  a  curse  extraneous  to  its  constitution. 
But  the  constitution  of  the  universe  is  itself  the  expression  and 
revelation  of  the  truths  and  laws,  of  the  norms  of  perfection  and 
good,  of  the  archetype  of  wisdom  and  love  eternal  in  God.  And 
1  Heb.  xii.  29.  2  James  v.  3. 


SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE 


41 


God  is  immanent  in  the  universe,  active  in  all  its  evolution  and 
delivering  his  blessing  and  his  curse  through  its  agencies  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  its  constitution  and  laws. 

It  follows  that  God’s  blessing  and  his  curse  each  carries  in  it 
the  service  of  all  the  powers  of  the  universe  concentrating  their 
energies  on  its  fulfilment  and  execution.  God’s  blessing  is  not 
the  voice  of  an  aged  man  trembling  into  the  air  with  a  mere 
“  Wish  you  well,”  or  even  a  prayer,  “  God  bless  you,  my  child.” 
When  God  blesses,  “  underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms  ”  which 
carry  in  them  for  our  support  all  the  powers  of  the  universe. 
And  his  condemnation  carries  in  it  the  same  powers,  working 
evil  to  the  sinner. 

4.  Every  one  who  trusts  and  serves  God  in  Christian  love  is 
justified  in  believing  that  he  is  personally  under  God’s  special 
providential  care. 

This  is  implied  in  the  essential  idea  of  religion  that  man  comes 
into  communion  with  God ;  that  every  person  by  his  worship  and 
service  may  obtain  for  himself  individually  God’s  protection,  guid¬ 
ance,  and  blessing.  Christianity,  while  recognizing  the  organic 
unity  of  the  human  race  and  the  union  of  men  in  the  family,  the 
state,  and  the  church,  emphasizes  more  than  any  other  religion 
the  individual  personality  of  men  in  their  relation  to  God.  Every 
one  who  will  may  be  justified  on  condition  of  his  own  personal 
faith,  may  enter  into  his  closOt  and  commune  alone  with  God,  and 
his  body  becomes  the  temple  of  God,  dwelling  in  him  in  his  Holy 
Spirit.  Thus  God’s  special  providential  care  of  every  Christian, 
causing  all  things  to  work  together  for  his  personal  good,  is  of 
the  essence  of  all  religion  and  is  especially  emphasized  in  Chris¬ 
tianity. 

Accordingly  this  individualizing  care  is  prominent  in  the  bibli¬ 
cal  revelation  of  God.  “  Cast  all  your  care  on  God  :  for  he  careth 
for  you.”  “  Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so  the  Lord 
pitieth  them  who  fear  him.”  God’s  special  care  of  every  one 
who  trusts  him  is  declared  to  be  like  that  of  a  mother  caring  for 
her  child.  It  is  more,  for  “  the  mother  may  forget,  yet  will  not 
I  forget  thee  ”  ;  “  how  much  more  shall  your  father  who  is  in 
heaven  give  good  things  to  them  who  ask  him.”  God  is  com¬ 
pared  to  a  shepherd,  taking  the  lambs  in  his  arms  and  gently 
caring  for  each  sheep  according  to  its  needs.  Christ  compares 
himself  to  a  shepherd  calling  every  one  of  his  flock  by  name. 


42 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


This  last  expression,  “  he  calleth  them  all  by  name,”  is  full  of 
significance.  A  man  knows  very  few  of  his  fellow  men  so  that  he 
can  call  them  by  name ;  and  of  brutes  only  a  few  of  his  domestic 
animals.  Were  he  obliged  to  know  every  man,  and  brute,  and 
plant,  and  every  inorganic  thing  by  a  special  proper  name,  the 
language  could  never  be  learned,  and  all  thought  and  knowledge 
would  be  overwhelmed.  But  man  is  able  to  group  resembling 
objects  together  and  give  them  a  common  name,  collecting  them 
as  it  were  in  bundles  and  binding  them  with  the  name.  Then  it 
is  possible  to  think  and  speak  of  these  groups,  passing  the  bundles, 
as  it  were,  from  hand  to  hand.  Thus  man  can  acquire  and  com¬ 
municate  knowledge  of  the  universe  and  of  all  things  in  it,  so  far 
as  they  come  under  his  observation.  This  is  a  manifestation  of 
the  greatness  of  the  human  mind.  But  as  compared  with  God, 
man’s  strength  is  weakness.  God  knows  everything  in  its  indi¬ 
viduality  and  peculiarity  as  well  as  all  things  in  their  relations  and 
unities,  and  all  unities  in  the  universe.  And  as  his  knowledge  of 
men  is  individualizing,  so  also  is  his  providential  government. 
“  He  calleth  his  own  sheep  by  name  and  leadeth  them  out.” 
And  this  knowledge  and  care  extend  to  the  most  minute  events. 
The  giving  of  a  cup  of  cold  water  for  Christ’s  sake  shall  not  pass 
unnoticed  or  unrewarded ;  and  every  idle  word  that  man  shall 
speak  he  shall  give  account  thereof  in  the  judgment. 

God’s  special  providence  caring  for  the  individual  is  also  in 
accord  with  reason  and  sound  philosophy.  It  is  not,  as  is  often 
supposed,  contradictory  to  God’s  universal  government  under 
law.  On  the  contrary,  God’s  government  cannot  be  universal 
unless  it  extends  to  all  particulars,  and  it  cannot  be  moral  unless 
it  discriminates  among  rational  beings  as  to  individual  personal 
character.  God’s  care  for  individuals  in  his  special  providence  is 
simply  his  universal  government  in  its  application  to  rational 
beings  individually  and  personally,  discriminating  among  them  as 
to  their  voluntary  union  with  God  or  alienation  from  him  and  the 
character  and  action  implied  therein.  And  in  exercising  this 
care  of  them  he  acts  on  and  through  second  causes  in  accord 
with  their  constitution  and  with  the  laws  eternal  in  the  divine 
Reason  and  fixed  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe. 

The  good  which,  in  consequence  of  a  person’s  loving  trust  and 
service  of  God,  comes  to  him  through  second  causes  according 
to  the  constitution  of  things,  is  as  real  an  expression  of  God’s 


SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE 


43 


favor  and  special  providential  care,  as  it  would  be  if  brought 
upon  him  by  the  immediate  efficiency  of  God.  And  the  evil 
which  a  person  brings  on  himself  thus,  in  consequence  of  his  sin, 
is  as  real  an  expression  of  God’s  displacency  and  condemnation. 
The  common  error  that  this  cannot  be  true,  springs  from  over¬ 
looking  the  fundamental  fact  that  God  transcends  the  universe, 
and  has  given  it  its  constitution  and  laws  from  the  principles 
eternal  in  the  divine  reason.  The  discrimination  on  the  basis  of 
character  is  inwrought  by  God  into  the  constitution  of  the  universe. 
And  the  thought  and  purpose  of  his  wisdom  and  love,  which  he 
has  fixed  in  the  constitution  of  things,  do  not  cease  to  be  his 
thought  and  purpose  when  they  come  to  expression  in  the  universe 
itself.  The  sunshine  which  warms  us  does  not  the  less  come  from 
the  sun  and  reveal  it,  because  it  has  come  millions  of  miles  through 
the  ether.  From  the  beginning,  God  has  imprinted  the  thought 
of  his  wisdom  and  the  purpose  of  his  love  in  his  world-idea,  as  if 
on  a  scroll  rolled  up  and  sealed  with  many  seals.  As  it  is  un¬ 
rolled  in  the  creation  and  from  epoch  to  epoch  successive  seals 
are  broken,  it  is  revealing  line  by  line  the  thought  and  purpose 
of  God. 


“God  is  Law,  say  the  wise  :  O  soul,  and  let  us  rejoice. 

For  if  he  thunder  law,  the  thunder  is  yet  his  voice.” 

The  universe  does  not  roll  its  bulk  between  us  and  God,  as  the 
earth  rolls  between  us  and  the  sun  and  brings  the  night.  It  does 
not  hide  God  ;  it  reveals  him,  a  God  near  at  hand,  not  afar  off; 
who  is  not  far  from  every  one  of  us ;  the  God  immanent  in  the 
universe,  in  whom  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being. 

It  has  been  shown  that  God  in  his  special  providence  insures 
good  to  the  person  who  is  in  union  with  him  in  the  love  that 
trusts  as  well  as  serves.  The  good  is  awarded  to  a  person  on  the 
basis  of  love,  which  begins  and  continues  as  a  loving  trust  in  God, 
and  works  as  loving  service  of  God  in  doing  good  to  men.  There 
is  an  analogy  to  this  in  the  natural  life  of  man.  His  power 
reaches  its  highest  efficiency  only  when  he  avails  himself  of  the 
powers  of  nature,  and  acts  in  harmony  with  its  laws.  This  is 
exemplified  in  the  multiplication  of  human  power  in  the  use  of 
nature’s  forces  through  machinery.  It  is  exemplified  also  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  human  life  and  enterprise.  Life  is  full  of 
opportunities.  Failure  of  success  is  very  often  due  to  the  fact 


44 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


that,  when  opportunity  is  presented,  the  person  is  not  ready  to 
improve  it.  But  the  man  of  forecast  and  enterprise  forms  his 
plan  and  boldly  pushes  forward  to  execute  it.  Opportunities 
present  themselves,  and  he  is  ready  to  avail  himself  of  them.  By 
his  wisely  directed  energy  he  himself  creates  opportunities,  open¬ 
ing  outlets  for  the  forces  waiting  to  come  to  his  aid.  He  sets  up 
his  battery,  and  the  lightning  comes  to  serve  him ;  he  bores  the 
earth,  and  the  hidden  springs  well  up ;  he  smites  the  rock,  and 
the  pent-up  water  gushes  forth.  Thus  the  course  of  events  favors 
him ;  unexpected  forces  work  with  and  for  him,  and  he  succeeds. 

“  Winds  blow  and  waters  roll 
Strength  to  the  brave,  and  power  and  deity.” 

People  begin  to  speak  of  the  man’s  peculiar  “  luck.”  The  man 
himself  begins,  like  Bonaparte,  to  believe  in  his  star ;  he  thinks 
himself  a  man  of  destiny.  But  his  luck,  his  star,  his  destiny,  is 
only  his  own  skill  and  energy  in  seeing  the  opportunities  of  his 
condition  and  of  the  course  of  events,  and  uniting  his  energies 
with  forces  which  help  the  accomplishment  of  his  design.  As 
Emerson  says,  he  hitches  his  wagon  to  a  star.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  a  saying  as  old  as  Sophocles,  “  Fortune  never  helps  the  man 
whose  courage  fails.” 

So,  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  sphere,  man  attains  his  highest 
spiritual  power  only  as  he  unites  himself  with  God  by  accepting 
his  freely-offered  grace  and  working  with  him  in  trusting  and 
serving  love.  The  forces  and  laws  of  nature  are  non-moral. 
They  give  their  aid  and  direction  to  the  man  who  works  with 
them  in  the  accomplishment  of  his  immediate  design,  whether  he 
is  doing  good  or  evil.  Therefore  he  may  be  working  with  them 
and  they  with  him  for  his  own  ruin.  But  in  the  spiritual  sphere, 
when  a  man  hitches  his  wagon,  not  to  a  star,  but  to  God  who 
made  the  star  and  appointed  to  it  its  laws,  then  he  works  with 
God  and  God  works  with  him,  and  insures  his  highest  power  and 
efficiency  and  his  true  well-being.  And  thus  coming  into  union 
with  God,  he  is  in  harmony  with  God  and  with  the  powers  and 
laws  of  the  universe.  Even  if  he  fail  in  a  particular  enterprise, 
his  spiritual  power  is  developed  and  ready  for  the  other  work,  and 
his  well-being  is  secured.  When  a  Christian,  having  faith  in  God, 
enters  on  a  bold  enterprise  for  the  advancement  of  Christ’s  king¬ 
dom,  he  finds  opportunities  opening,  auxiliaries  working  with  him, 


SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE 


45 


heavenly  influences  preceding  and  attending  him,  more  than  he 
had  ventured  to  expect.  The  history  of  the  introduction  and 
spread  of  Christianity,  of  the  Protestant  Reformation,  of  the  abo¬ 
lition  of  negro  slavery,  and  in  fact  the  whole  history  of  Christ’s 
church,  exemplify  this  truth.  The  early  missionaries  to  the  South 
Sea  Islands  reported  wonderful  instances  of  God’s  providence  in 
preparing  the  natives  to  receive  the  gospel,  and  giving  success  to 
their  work.  If  the  missionaries  had  not  gone  to  the  islands,  the 
opportunities  might  have  existed,  but  no  one  would  have  been 
there  to  improve  them.  But  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  God, 
who  by  his  Spirit  had  led  the  missionaries  to  the  islands,  had 
prepared  the  opportunities  for  them,  and  that  both  were  con¬ 
templated  together  in  his  eternal  purpose.  A  great  general  said 
he  had  always  observed  that  Providence  is  on  the  side  of  the 
strongest  battalions  ;  another  is  reported  to  have  given  the  order  : 
“Trust  God  and  keep  your  powder  dry.”  These  are  often  re¬ 
peated,  as  if  implying  that  God’s  providence  has  nothing  to  do 
with  determining  events.  But  the  true  doctrine  of  God’s  provi¬ 
dential  government  and  purpose  affirms  the  reality  of  human 
agency  and  the  necessity,  in  order  to  its  highest  efficiency,  of 
using  the  powers  and  resources  of  nature  in  conformity  with  its 
fixed  laws.  This  is  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  shipwreck  of  Paul. 
That  every  one  in  the  ship  should  be  saved  was  not  only  pre¬ 
destined  but  foretold.  Yet  the  result  depended  on  human  skill 
and  effort.  For  when  the  sailors  were  about  to  leave  in  the  boat, 
Paul  said,  Except  these  abide  in  the  ship,  ye  cannot  be  saved. 

A  man  exerts  his  highest  power  when  he  acts  in  spontaneity, 
not  when  he  is  conscious  of  struggle  and  conflict.  In  learning  to 
speak,  or  to  read,  or  to  handle  tools,  or  to  play  on  a  musical 
instrument,  the  learner  must  go  through  a  period  of  conscious 
effort  before  he  acquires  mastery  of  what  he  is  learning,  so  that 
he  acts  spontaneously.  But  the  spontaneous  action  evinces  a 
skill  and  power  immeasurably  above  that  of  the  learner’s  laborious 
exertion.  When  a  person  unites  himself  with  God  in  trusting 
and  serving  love,  he  is  strong  with  God’s  strength ;  he  is  in  har¬ 
mony  with  himself,  with  the  universe,  and  with  God ;  he  is  hin¬ 
dered  by  nothing  within  or  without  himself  in  working  together 
with  God.  All  things  work  together  with  him  and  for  him.  And 
besides  this,  since  God  is  love,  the  person  whose  character  is  love 
is  “a  partaker  of  the  divine  nature.”  And  love  is  spontaneous 


46 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


in  its  service.  The  person  no  longer  acts  consciously  constrained 
by  a  command  from  without.  The  law  is  written  on  his  heart. 
The  love  which  the  law  requires  has  become  character,  the  force 
impelling  all  his  action.  It  is  his  delight  to  do  God’s  will. 
In  doing  duty  because  commanded  by  an  outward  law  he  is 
moral.  In  trusting  and  serving  God  he  is  divine.  In  him  truth 
and  law  are  transmuted  into  life.  They  are  taken  up  into  love 
and  have  become  his  vital  force.  His  action  in  serving  God  has 
become  spontaneous  and  powerful  as  are  the  processes  of  life. 
How  quietly  the  acorn  sends  its  white  and  delicate  shoot  through 
the  incumbent  soil,  how  majestically  the  immense  weight  of  the 
tree  is  lifted  up  and  spread  into  sturdy  boughs  and  crowned  with 
leaves,  and  how  strong  it  stands  wrestling  with  the  winds  !  And 
what  a  studying  and  planning,  what  a  straining  and  creaking  and 
pounding,  if  men  had  tried  to  do  it  mechanically.  Such  is  the 
spontaneous  but  mighty  power  of  life.  Analogous  is  the  spon¬ 
taneous,  majestic  might  of  Christian  love  trusting  and  serving  God 
and  man,  which  is  spiritual  life,  quickened  and  sustained  by  God. 
And  in  this  way  God’s  special  providential  care  of  the  Christian 
insures  the  development  of  his  highest  spiritual  power  and  per¬ 
fection,  and  his  true  well-being. 

5.  While  special  providence  does  not  exclude  God’s  imme¬ 
diate  interpositions  nor  his  miraculous  action,  it  does  not,  as  is 
often  supposed,  consist  wholly  of  these.  Such  an  interposition 
of  God  with  an  immediate  fiat  of  his  will  is  no  more  necessary 
in  his  special  providence  than  it  is  in  the  movement  of  every 
particle  of  dust  blown  by  the  wind.  But  the  direct  interposition 
of  God  even  in  a  miracle  undoubtedly  occurs  in  accordance  with 
law.  When,  in  the  process  of  evolution,  matter  is  prepared  to  be 
the  medium  for  a  higher  revelation  of  God  in  it,  the  revelation 
is  made.  So,  in  the  spiritual  sphere,  miracles  mark  epochs  in 
the  development  of  God’s  kingdom  when  a  new  and  special 
revelation  of  God  was  both  needed  and  prepared  for.  Here  we 
recognize  the  subordination  of  the  physical  system  to  the  spiritual, 
and  therein  the  harmony  and  co-operation  of  the  two  in  the 
progressive  realization  of  God’s  world-idea.  This,  perhaps,  is 
exemplified  in  the  case  of  Herod.  For  his  self-sufficiency  and 
contempt  of  God  an  angel  smote  him  and  he  was  eaten  of  worms  1 
—  the  highest  of  God’s  creatures  and  the  lowest  working  to- 

-  Acts  xii.  23. 


SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE 


47 


gether  to  punish  him  for  his  sin.  If  we  knew  his  whole  history 
we  should  probably  find  that  his  sins  of  the  spirit  had  prepared 
him  for  the  smiting  from  the  spiritual  sphere,  and  his  sins  of  the 
flesh  had  equally  prepared  him  to  be  eaten  of  worms. 

Any  conception  of  God’s  special  providence  which  limits  it 
to  his  immediate  interposition,  isolated  from  his  progressive 
revelation  of  himself  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe  and  the 
action  of  all  things  in  it  under  law,  puts  special  providence  in 
contradiction  to  God’s  universal  government.  In  its  logical 
issue  it  requires  a  God  who  is  arbitrary  and  almighty  will  un¬ 
regulated  by  law,  and  thus  makes  the  reign  of  God  incompatible 
with  the  reign  of  law.  This  is  exemplified  by  Mr.  Hamerton, 
who  represents  the  reign  of  divine  love  as  incompatible  with  the 
reign  of  law.1  His  whole  discussion  rests  on  the  false  conception 
of  God  as  an  arbitrary  and  almighty  will  outside  of  the  universe 
and  acting  in  it  only  by  direct  interruption  of  its  constitution 
and  laws.  His  line  of  thought  is  the  one  commonly  presented 
by  those  who  regard  theology  and  science  as  antagonistic  and 
incompatible.  But  it  rests  on  extremely  superficial  views  both 
of  theology  and  science,  and  is  of  no  force  whatever  against 
Christian  theism  rightly  understood.  The  reign  of  wisdom  and 
love  is  not  incompatible  with  the  reign  of  law.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  essential  to  the  reign  of  law. 

What  are  regarded  as  special  interpositions  of  providence,  and 
even  miracles,  are  always  accordant  with  law.  God  is  immanent 
in  the  course  of  nature  in  the  physical  system.  In  this  uniform 
course  of  nature  we  ordinarily  take  little  notice  of  the  continuous 
action  of  its  tremendous  energies.  Electricity,  for  example, 
courses  through  all  nature,  continuously  quickening  life  and 
growth ;  but  we  notice  it  only  in  its  occasional  and  exceptional 

1  “  The  philosopher  says,  ‘  If  you  are  prudent  and  skilful  in  your  con¬ 
formity  with  the  laws  of  life,  you  will  probably  secure  that  amount  of 
mental  and  physical  satisfaction  which  is  attainable  by  a  person  of  your 
organization.’  The  priest  holds  a  very  different  language.  The  use  of 
the  one  word,  love,  gives  warmth  and  color  to  his  discourse.  lie  says,  ‘  If 
you  love  God  with  all  your  soul  and  with  all  your  strength,  he  will  love  and 
cherish  you  in  return  and  be  your  true  and  tender  father.  He  will  watch 
over  every  detail  and  every  minute  of  your  existence,  guard  you  from  all 
real  evil,  and  at  last  he  will  welcome  you  to  his  eternal  kingdom. Philip 
Gilbert  Hamerton,  “  Human  Intercourse,”  Essay  iii.,  “  Priests  and  Women.” 
p.  178  ;  see  also  Essays  xiv.  and  xv. 


48 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


revelations  of  itself,  as  in  lightning,  or  as  evoked  by  man  in  his 
electric  machinery.  But  its  exceptional  manifestations  are  as 
really  accordant  with  law  as  is  its  uniform  and  unnoticed  ener¬ 
gizing.  The  change  is  not  in  the  nature  or  the  laws  of  elec¬ 
tricity,  but  in  the  conditions  under  which  it  acts.  So  in  the 
spiritual  sphere  God’s  energy  acting  in  love  as  moral  influence 
is  all-pervasive  ;  it  is  universal  good-will  regulated  in  its  exercise 
by  wisdom  and  righteousness  in  conformity  with  the  eternal 
principles  and  laws  of  reason  and  for  the  realization  of  its  arche¬ 
typal  ideal.  In  this,  its  uniform  action,  it  is  little  noticed.  It  is 
in  the  great  epochs  of  God’s  historical  revelation  of  himself,  in 
miracles,  in  the  coming  of  Christ,  in  what  we  call  special  inter¬ 
positions  of  providence,  that  it  attracts  attention.  But  in  the 
epochs,  the  miracles,  the  special  interpositions,  God’s  action  is 
accordant  with  law  as  really  as  the  uniform  divine  action  which 
attracts  less  attention.  The  difference  is  not  in  the  essence  of 
God’s  love  nor  in  the  laws  in  accordance  with  which  he  exercises 
it,  but  in  the  varying  conditions  of  the  finite  universe  in  its  pro¬ 
gressive  evolution  and  in  the  different  stages  of  human  develop¬ 
ment  and  the  varying  characters  and  actions  of  rational,  self- 
determining  persons. 

The  same  principle  is  true  in  respect  to  man’s  availing  himself 
of  God’s  gracious  energy  in  redeeming  men  from  sin.  The 
cosmic  forces  of  light,  heat,  electricity,  gravitation,  chemical 
affinity,  and  the  like  are  always  energizing,  and  always  available 
for  special  service  under  the  direction  of  man.  But  man  must 
first  acquaint  himself  with  their  nature  and  the  laws  of  their 
action,  and  provide  the  conditions  and  instrumentalities  through 
which  the  forces  can  act  and  be  directed  to  the  special  service 
required.  The  human  agency  does  not  supersede  the  laws,  but 
only  directs  the  cosmic  agencies  in  a  determinate  line  of  action  in 
accordance  with  these  laws.  These  cosmic  energies  are  always 
waiting  to  serve  man  whenever  he  is  thus  willing  and  prepared 
to  avail  himself  of  their  service.  So  it  is  in  the  moral  and  spirit¬ 
ual  sphere.  God  is  ever  present,  energizing  in  the  fulness  of  his 
redeeming  love  to  renovate  men  to  the  life  of  love  and  to  quicken 
and  guide  them  in  it  to  their  highest  efficiency  in  working  to 
bring  all  men  to  participate  in  that  life.  In  successive  epochs 
God  has  revealed  himself  to  men,  pre-eminently  in  Christ,  the 
Sun  of  Righteousness  rising  on  the  world  with  healing  in  his 


SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE 


49 


beams  (Mai.  iv.  2),  and  in  the  Holy  Spirit  perpetuating  the  work 
of  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself.  God  is 
everywhere  and  always  present  in  his  redeeming  grace,  willing 
to  receive  every  one  whom  he  can  induce  to  return  to  him,  and 
to  act  in  him  with  gracious  spiritual  influences  for  his  complete 
renovation  and  development,  and  with  him  and  through  his 
agency  for  the  advancement  of  his  kingdom.  But  every  man 
must  know  God’s  grace,  and  supply  in  himself  the  conditions 
in  accordance  with  which  God,  in  conformity  with  the  eternal 
principles,  laws,  and  ideals  of  the  moral  system,  can  exert  this 
divine  energy  in  him  for  his  renovation,  development,  and  per¬ 
fection,  and  through  him  for  the  advancement  of  his  kingdom 
and  the  reconciliation  of  the  world  unto  himself.  Electricity  is 
all-pervading,  and  wherever  a  man  sets  up  a  battery  according 
to  its  laws  the  electric  power  presents  itself  and  serves  him. 
So  God’s  influences  are  all-pervasive,  encompassing  us  like  the 
sunshine,  the  atmosphere,  gravitation,  electricity.  Christ  com¬ 
mands  us  to  enter  into  our  closet  and  shut  the  door  and  pray, 
alone  with  God  alone  ;  and  he  assures  us  that  God  will  hear 
and  answer.  And  wherever  one  sets  up  his  closet  and  in  peni¬ 
tential  and  loving  trust  opens  his  heart  to  receive  God’s  gracious 
influence,  he  finds  it  available  for  his  service  ;  the  Spirit  with  all 
the  energies  of  redeeming  love  works  in  him  and  he  avails  him¬ 
self  of  the  divine  light  and  energy  of  the  indwelling  Spirit,  work¬ 
ing  with  him  for  his  own  sanctification  and  development  and  for 
the  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  Thus  he  attains  his 
greatest  efficiency  in  the  Christian  life  and  work,  analogous  to 
his  increased  efficiency  in  work  in  the  physical  sphere  by  getting 
control  of  the  cosmic  forces  and  compelling  them  to  work  with 
him  and  for  him  in  his  service. 

This  is  a  striking  exemplification  of  God’s  special  providence, 
working  with  each  individual  who  intelligently  and  willingly  avails 
himself  of  the  proffered  divine  power  and  resources,  both  in  the 
physical  sphere  and  the  spiritual,  in  his  endeavor  to  attain  his 
own  most  complete  development  and  his  greatest  efficiency  in 
promoting  the  progress  and  well-being  of  mankind. 

6.  The  true  conception  of  God’s  special  providence  shows  the 
need  of  caution  in  interpreting  the  providential  significance  of 
events. 

Special  providence  does  not  insure  deliverance  from  any  par- 
vol.  11.  —  4 


50 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


ticular  temporal  privation  and  suffering  nor  the  acquisition  of  any 
particular  temporal  gain.  God  is  not  so  impoverished  as  to  re¬ 
ward  men  for  their  loving  trust  and  service  with  money  or  fame  or 
any  earthly  good,  or  to  punish  the  wicked  with  the  loss  of  them. 
There  is,  indeed,  in  the  distribution  of  temporal  gain  and  loss  an 
analogy  to  special  providence  in  the  fact  that  a  temporal  good  is 
gained  and  a  temporal  evil  avoided  by  conformity  to  the  natural 
laws  pertaining  to  the  case.  If  one  knew  all  the  laws  of  health 
and  could  always  conform  to  them,  he  would  be  exempt  from 
sickness,  so  far  as  his  constitutional  organization  derived  from  his 
ancestors  would  permit.  There  are  laws  of  industry,  frugality, 
temperance,  and  self-control,  conformity  with  which  promote 
thrift ;  and  such  conformity  will  be  far  more  effective  than  strikes 
and  intimidation  designed  to  force  the  acquisition  of  gain  in  dis¬ 
regard  of  these  laws.  But  these  laws  pertain  only  to  outward 
action.  They  do  not  open  the  fountain  of  the  new  spiritual  life 
and  character  in  the  heart.  Therefore,  a  man,  in  schemes  of 
wickedness,  may  act  in  the  conformity  with  the  natural  laws  essen¬ 
tial  to  his  success.  On  the  other  hand,  men  are  as  yet  to  a  great 
extent  ignorant  of  the  natural  laws  of  living,  and  science  itself  has 
yet  much  to  discover ;  being  members  of  society  and  of  that  great 
organic  whole,  the  human  race,  men  are  subject  to  evils  coming 
on  them  from  others,  as  in  the  spread  of  contagious  diseases  and 
in  the  opposition  of  the  wicked ;  and  they  are  exposed  to  cosmic 
power  and  convulsions,  like  lightning,  earthquakes,  and  tornadoes ; 
for  all  these  reasons,  they  are  liable  to  privation  and  suffering 
notwithstanding  their  best  endeavors  to  avoid  them.  Hence  the 
success  attained  by  conformity  with  these  natural  laws  does  not 
prove  God’s  approval  and  blessing  of  the  successful  man,  nor  in¬ 
sure  that  his  success  will  promote  his  true  good,  nor  does  his  fail¬ 
ure  prove  God’s  displacency  and  condemnation.  Therefore,  alike 
in  temporal  prosperity  or  adversity,  we  must  look  beyond  the  sphere 
of  nature  to  the  higher  realm  of  spirit,  to  which  nature  is  sub¬ 
ordinated,  in  order  to  see  God’s  special  providence  in  its  true 
significance. 

The  providential  significance  of  a  single  event  can  be  rightly 
apprehended  only  in  its  relation  to  God’s  whole  progressive  reve¬ 
lation  of  himself  in  the  universe.  This  is  always  progressive, 
commensurate  with  the  powers,  susceptibilities,  and  relations  of 
the  beings  that  are  objects  of  his  action,  or  agencies  through 


SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE 


51 


which  he  acts,  and  accordant  with  the  constitution  and  laws  of 
the  universe.  There  is  always  danger  of  forgetting  that  God’s 
universal  purpose  is  unrolled  line  by  line,  and  so  of  trying  to 
interpret  the  single  line  presented  at  the  moment  to  the  eye  as 
if  it  were  the  whole  record.  Some  Scotch  Covenanters,  under  per¬ 
secution  and  hiding  from  the  dragoons,  took  refuge  in  a  cave. 
The  dragoons,  coming  soon  after,  saw  the  narrow  entrance,  but 
seeing  a  spider  hanging  in  its  web  before  it  they  concluded  that 
no  one  could  have  entered  it  so  recently,  and  passed  on.  The 
Christian  might  naturally  interpret  the  event  as  signifying  that 
God  by  his  immediate  interposition  had  appointed  this  spider  to 
fortify  the  cave  and  mount  guard  over  it,  and,  therefore,  no  hu¬ 
man  power  could  break  through  and  enter  in.  But  it  is  likely,  if 
it  had  been  robbers  fleeing  from  justice  who  had  taken  refuge  in 
the  cave  just  at  the  same  time,  the  spider  would  have  woven  its 
web  all  the  same,  and  have  been  equally  effective  in  protecting 
them  from  the  officers.  It  is  said  the  life  of  Mohammed  was 
once  saved  in  a  similar  way  by  the  discovery  of  an  undisturbed 
bird’s  nest.  And  we  know  that  many  Christians  have  been  per¬ 
secuted  and  have  died  as  martyrs  with  no  interposition  of  God  to 
save  them.  But  God  by  his  Spirit  has  enabled  them  to  glory  in 
the  tribulation,  to  rejoice  in  being  counted  worthy  to  suffer  for 
Christ’s  sake,  and  to  die  like  Paul  triumphant  in  the  consciousness 
of  fidelity,  achievement,  and  victory  in  the  past  and  glory  opening 
before  him  in  the  life  everlasting  (2  Tim.  iv.  6-8). 

7.  God  in  his  special  providence  administers  the  government 
of  the  universe,  so  far  as  it  is  related  to  the  earth  and  man,  in  the 
interest  of  his  kingdom,  so  as  to  insure  its  progress  and  its  ulti¬ 
mate  triumph  in  the  reign  of  righteousness  and  good-will  on 
earth  and,  when  the  earthly  history  of  man  shall  end,  in  its 
completion  in  the  unseen  world  and  its  perpetuation  in  ways  not 
definitely  revealed  to  us  in  the  heavenly  glory  forever.  The  king¬ 
dom  of  God  comprises  all  perfection  and  good  for  man.  His 
special  providential  care  of  all  who  serve  him  in  love  is  merely 
the  application  in  details  to  individuals  of  his  providential  purpose 
to  establish  his  kingdom.  In  caring  for  the  flock  and  fold,  the 
shepherd  cares  for  every  sheep  and  lamb.  In  caring  for  the 
family,  the  father  and  mother  care  for  every  child. 

And  every  one  who  is  working  for  the  advancement  of  this 
kingdom  knows  that  he  is  working  with  God,  and  that  nothing  of 


52 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  PROVIDENCE 


all  his  labor  and  self-denial  is  wasted.  The  same  is  true  of  every 
effort  to  accomplish  particular  and  subordinate  ends  necessary  in 
the  progressive  transformation  of  human  society  into  the  kingdom 
of  God.  In  the  conflict  with  intemperance  and  licentiousness, 
with  despotism  and  slavery,  with  injustice  and  oppression,  with 
dishonesty  and  fraud,  with  covetousness  and  worldliness,  the 
Christian  reformer  has  no  assurance  that  his  particular  measures 
for  promoting  the  reform  are  approved  by  God  and  will  have  his 
blessing,  but  he  knows  that  God  is  working  with  him  for  the  moral 
reformation  which  he  is  seeking  to  effect  in  the  advancement  of 
the  universal  reign  of  righteousness  and  good-will.  He  is,  there¬ 
fore,  fearless,  knowing  that,  whatever  the  appearance  to  the  dim- 
sighted  who  never  look  beyond  what  seems  politic  for  immediate 
personal  or  partisan  advantage,  the  powers  that  are  for  him  are 
more  than  those  that  are  against  him.  “  One  with  God  makes  a 
majority.” 

Here,  also,  it  is  true  that  God’s  providential  purpose  is  accom¬ 
plished  through  the  agency  of  second  causes  and  in  accordance 
with  the  constitution  and  laws  of  the  universe.  He  must  seek, 
for  citizens  of  his  kingdom,  rational  free  agents  who  may  accept 
or  refuse  his  grace,  and  he  must  advance  it  through  the  agency  of 
men  who  unite  themselves  with  him  by  faith,  and  work  with  him 
for  its  advancement.  Hence  the  kingdom  can  be  established 
only  progressively,  in  real  conflict  with  the  powers  of  evil.  Hence 
there  are  hours  of  the  power  of  darkness  when  wickedness  seems 
to  prevail  over  love.  But  the  Christian  works  inspired  by  the 
assurance  that  the  kingdom  will  triumph  and  the  gates  of  hell 
shall  not  prevail  against  it.  He  may  die  without  the  sight ;  but 
he  shall  see  it  and  rejoice.  And  blessed  is  he  who  in  this  divine 
work  is  faithful  unto  death. 


PART  IV. 


GOD  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL 

GO  VERNMENT. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY. 

In  the  study  of  ethics,  it  is  necessary  to  begin  with  clear  and 
exact  psychological  definitions  of  what  constitutes  moral  respon¬ 
sibility  and  moral  character.  Through  neglect  of  this,  ethical 
writers  are  often  involved  in  indefiniteness  and  obscurity  of 
thought,  fail  to  mark  the  exact  limits  of  moral  responsibility 
and  the  exact  bounds  of  ethical  science,  do  not  clearly  appre¬ 
hend  the  matter  of  which  they  are  to  treat  and  the  right  methods 
of  treating  it,  and  thus  fall  into  errors.  Often  a  correct  psycho¬ 
logical  definition  is  all  that  is  necessary  to  solve  a  perplexing 
ethical  problem  or  to  bring  to  a  definite  issue  a  long-continued 
controversy,  or  to  correct  a  wide-spread  error.  And  because  the¬ 
ology  and  ethics  are  inseparably  connected,  correct  psychological 
definitions  are  in  the  same  way  essential  to  clear  thinking  on 
many  theological  topics.  I,  therefore,  begin  the  investigation 
of  God’s  moral  government  with  the  necessary  psychological 
definitions. 

In  “The  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,”  I  have  given  the 
definitions  of  the  will  and  its  freedom  necessary  to  determine  the 
elements  and  bounds  of  moral  responsibility,  and  the  distinctive 
characteristics  of  personality.1  We  come  now  to  the  ethical 
application  of  those  definitions  and  the  principles  involved  in 
them,  which  was  there  merely  indicated  in  a  few  lines.  Before 
proceeding,  we  must  recall  some  of  those  definitions  and  prin- 


1  Chap,  xiv.,  xv.,  xvi.,  pp.  345-427. 


54  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 

ciples,  because  they  mark  the  true  lines  of  thought  in  the  investi¬ 
gation  of  ethics  and  the  moral  government  of  God. 

The  will  is  the  power  of  a  person,  endowed  with  reason  and  sus¬ 
ceptible  of  rational  motives  and  emotions,  to  determine  the  ends  to 
which  he  will  direct  his  energies  and  the  exertion  ot  his  energies. 
This  definition  of  the  will  implies  its  freedom.  The  freedom  of 
the  will  is  in  the  fact  that  the  person  is  enlightened  by  reason  and 
susceptible  of  rational  motives  and  thus  is  self-determining,  both  as 
self-directing  and  self-exerting.  A  will,  therefore,  is  a  person’s 
power  of  self-determination  ;  every  being  enlightened  by  reason  and 
susceptible  of  being  influenced  by  rational  motives  has  this  power, 
and  is  a  rational,  self-determining,  free  agent  under  moral 
government  and  law,  and  morally  responsible  for  his  actions  and 
character.  This  is  the  distinctive  characteristic  of  personality. 
Persons  are  thus  distinguished  from  all  other  beings  that  exert  or 
convey  causal  energy.  The  latter  are  designated  as  irrational 
and  impersonal.  Persons  alone,  who  are  enlightened  by  reason 
and  susceptible  to  rational  motives  and  emotions,  are  free  moral 
agents ;  they  alone  are  subjects  of  God’s  moral  law,  can  obey  or 
disobey  it,  and  are  morally  responsible  for  their  actions  and 
character. 

The  word  “  freedom  ”  is  used  with  other  meanings  and  appli¬ 
cations.  To  distinguish  it  from  these  the  freedom  essential  to 
moral  agency,  as  here  defined,  may  be  called  moral  freedom. 

One  example  of  a  different  use  and  application  of  the  word 
may  be  called  physical  freedom.  The  word  is  used  to  denote 
freedom  from  constraint  and  restraint  by  force  or  by  any 
necessity  which  the  person  has  not  the  power  to  escape  or 
resist,  if  he  will.  Skeptics  confound  this  physical  freedom  with 
moral  freedom.  They  argue  that  man  has  not  moral  freedom 
because  his  power  is  limited  by  his  constitution  and  environment. 
If  this  is  the  only  meaning  of  the  freedom  of  the  will,  then  the 
Almighty  alone  is  free.  Some  have  pushed  the  argument  even  to 
this  extreme,  denying  that  God  is  free,  because  he  did  not  create 
himself,  and  therefore  his  constitution  as  the  absolute  is  something 
“  given.”  The  absurdity  of  this  was  shown  in  Chapter  III.  of  the 
preceding  volume.  But  man’s  moral  freedom  is  totally  different 
from  physical  freedom.  It  is  man’s  power  to  determine  the  ends 
for  which  he  will  act  and  to  exert  his  energies  within  the  sphere 
of  his  constitutional  endowments  and  his  necessary  environment. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  55 


As  to  his  constitution,  instead  of  being  limited  by  it  as  merely 
sensuous,  it  is  his  constitution  as  a  rational,  self-determining 
person  in  the  likeness  of  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  the  eternal 
Spirit,  which  exalts  him  to  this  freedom.  “  There  is  a  spirit  in 
man  and  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth  him  understand¬ 
ing  ”  (job  xxxii.  8).  He  erects  himself  above  himself  so  far  as 
he  is  sensuous,  he  looks  beyond  his  physical  environment.  The 
most  profound  reality  in  man  is  that  he  is  spirit.  His  environ¬ 
ment  is  not  physical  alone,  it  is  spiritual.  “  In  God  we  live,  and 
move,  and  have  our  being”  (Acts  xvii.  28).  We  endure  “as 
seeing  him  who  is  invisible  ”  (Heb.  xi.  27).  “We  look  not  at 
the  things  which  are  seen,  but  at  the  things  which  are  not  seen  ; 
for  the  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal,  but  the  things  which 
are  not  seen  are  eternal  ”  (2  Cor.  iv.  18) .  Paul  and  Silas,  with  their 
feet  fast  in  the  stocks  and  in  the  midnight  darkness  of  “  the  inner 
prison,”  “  prayed  and  sang  praises  unto  God  ”  (Acts  xvi.  24,  25). 
No  power  could  abridge  the  freedom  of  their  wills  in  the  supreme 
choice  of  God.  They  retained  their  spiritual  power  and  freedom 
and  beheld  the  glory  of  their  spiritual  environment.  The 
argument  of  the  skeptic  has  no  force  except  on  the  basis  of  sheer 
materialism.  It  assumes,  as  Comte  expresses  it,  that  man  must 
cease  to  regard  himself  as  the  lowest  of  the  angels  and  be 
content  in  knowing  that  he  is  only  the  highest  of  the  brutes, 
having  no  power  or  susceptibility  differing  in  kind  from  those  of 
the  brutes.  Even  as  to  man’s  physical  constitution  and  environ¬ 
ment,  he  has  a  wide  range  of  power  both  in  developing  his  own 
powers  and  susceptibilities  and  in  changing  his  environment  or  in 
modifying  it  by  gaining  knowledge  of  the  laws  and  command  over 
the  powers  and  resources  of  nature. 

With  physical  freedom  may  be  included  civil  or  political 
freedom,  —  the  freedom  of  the  people  from  the  control  of  a  despot 
or  a  despotic  aristocracy  enforcing  the  decrees  of  arbitrary  will 
by  overpowering  force.  This  freedom  is  not  essential  to  moral 
freedom  and  responsibility ;  nor  does  the  freedom  to  choose  their 
own  rulers  and  to  enact  their  own  civil  and  criminal  laws  release 
the  people  from  the  moral  obligation  as  individuals  to  obey  the 
law  of  God,  and  collectively  to  see  that  laws  are  enacted  and 
government  administered  in  accordance  with  the  eternal  principles 
and  laws  of  Reason  and  of  God,  so  far  as  they  can  have  knowledge 
of  them. 


56  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


Freedom  is  used  in  a  third  meaning,  sometimes  designated  in 
philosophy  Real  Freedom.  This  exists  when  a  person’s  right 
character  is  so  completely  developed  in  the  life  of  love  that  he 
experiences  no  opposition  to  right  action  from  within  himself.  All 
his  intellectual  beliefs,  his  appetites,  desires  and  affections,  and 
his  habits  have  been  brought  into  complete  harmony  with  the 
requirements  of  God’s  law,  and  he  always  does  right  in  the 
spontaneity  of  love.  This  is  the  freedom  spoken  of  in  the  Bible 
as  deliverance  from  the  bondage  to  sin  under  the  dominion  of  the 
lower  propensities  of  human  nature  and  of  sinful  character  and 
habits.  As  Christ  said,  “  If  the  Son  shall  make  you  free,  ye  shall  be 
free  indeed  ”  (John  viii.  34-36) .  This  real  freedom  is  not  essential 
to  the  moral  freedom  of  the  will  and  is  not  to  be  confounded 
with  it.  It  can  exist  only  in  those  perfected  in  right  moral  and 
spiritual  character,  and  denotes  the  harmony,  spontaneity,  and 
blessedness  of  such  a  character. 

Freedom  is  used  also  in  a  fourth  meaning,  designated  in 
philosophy  Formal  Freedom.  In  the  controversies  respecting  free 
will  it  has  sometimes  been  maintained  that  it  is  essential  to  a  free 
determination  that  antecedent  to  the  determination  the  will  must 
be  in  a  state  of  indifference.  This  has  been  called  the  liberty  of 
indifference.  But  when  a  person  chooses  the  end  or  object  of 
action  he  forms  character.  Thereafter  the  will  is  never  in  a  state 
of  indifference  ;  it  is  a  will  already  charactered.  Formal  freedom, 
therefore,  is  the  state  of  the  will  antecedent  to  the  first  moral  act 
of  free  determination,  when  the  will  is  as  yet  characterless  in 
infantile  immaturity.  Formal  freedom,  therefore,  is  not  to  be 
confounded  with  moral  freedom  and  is  not  essential  to  moral 
agency.  It  has  no  existence  after  that  first  moral  action  and  the 
beginning  of  moral  character. 

Another  principle  which  was  established  in  “  The  Philosophical 
Basis  of  Theism  ”  is  that  the  will  is  not  determined  by  the  strongest 
motive,  but  that  under  the  influence  of  various  motives  in  every 
act  of  will  the  person  is  self-determining. 

Another  principle  is  that  the  function  of  the  will  as  self-deter¬ 
mining  is  twofold.  It  is  self-directing  and  self-exerting.  The 
self-directing  determination  I  call  choice  ;  it  is  the  determination 
of  the  end  or  object  to  which  to  direct  the  energies.  The 
self-exerting  determination  I  call  volition ;  it  is  the  determination 
which  exerts  or  calls  into  action  the  energies  in  the  direction  of 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  57 


the  object  chosen.1  I  choose  a  day’s  wages  as  the  object  to  the 
acquisition  of  which  in  preference  to  anything  else  I  will  direct  rny 
energies.  Then  I  take  my  tools  and  exert  my  energies  in 
successive  volitions  in  doing  the  work.  A  choice  is  an  abiding 
determination.  My  choice  of  wages  abides  as  a  determination 
all  day.  My  choice  of  God  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and 
service  may  abide  as  a  determination  forever.  A  volition  on  the 
contrary  is  transient  or  ictic,  ceasing  with  the  exertion  it  calls 
forth. 

We  further  distinguish  choices  as  supreme  and  subordinate.  A 
subordinate  choice  is  the  choice  of  some  object  to  be  acquired  and 
used  for  an  ulterior  end.  The  supreme  choice  is  the  determination 
of  the  supreme  end  or  object  to  which  all  the  energies  are  to  be 
directed. 

These  are  some  of  the  definitions  and  principles  pertaining  to 
the  freedom  of  the  will  and  the  basis  of  man’s  moral  obligation 
and  responsibility  in  the  volume  referred  to,  which  I  assume  as 
guiding  our  investigation  of  their  ethical  significance  and  appli¬ 
cation  under  the  moral  government  of  God. 

I  recur  here  for  a  moment  to  the  first  of  these  definitions, 
because  it  is  the  fundamental  principle  and  has  been  very  often 
overlooked.  It  is  that  the  freedom  of  the  will  arises  from 
the  fact  that  man  is  endowed  with  reason  and  susceptible  of 
rational  motives  and  emotions,  and  thus  is  able,  as  it  were,  to 
erect  himself  above  himself,  to  determine  his  objects  and  exer¬ 
tions  in  the  consciousness  of  rational  principles,  laws,  and  ideals 
and  of  rational  motives  and  emotions  allying  him  with  the  spirit¬ 
ual,  the  eternal  and  the  divine,  over  against  the  sensuous  impulses 
and  the  instincts  of  his  lower  nature,  allying  him  with  the  brutes. 
Therefore,  he  is  not  ruled  helplessly  by  the  instincts  of  nature, 
but  is  self-determining  in  moral  freedom.  He  is  distinguished 

1  Plato  recognizes  this  distinction  of  choice  and  volition.  “Socrates:  Do 
men  appear  to  you  to  will  that  which  they  do,  or  do  they  will  that  further 
object  for  the  sake  of  which  they  do  that  which  they  do,  —  for  example,  when 
they  take  medicine  at  the  bidding  of  a  physician,  do  they  will  the  drinking 
of  the  medicine,  or  the  health  for  the  sake  of  which  they  drink  ?  Polus  : 
Clearly  the  health.  Socrates  :  And  when  men  go  on  a  voyage  .  .  .  they 
will  to  have  the  wealth  for  the  sake  of  which  they  go  on  a  voyage.  Polus  : 
Certainly.  Socrates:  And  is  it  not  universally  true  ?  If  a  man  does  some¬ 
thing  for  the  sake  of  something  else,  he  wills  not  that  which  he  does,  but 
that  for  the  sake  of  which  he  does  it.”  (  “  Gorgias,”  467.) 


58  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


from  all  other  agents  that  exert  or  convey  energy  by  being  self¬ 
directive  and  self-exertive  in  the  light  of  reason. 

Kant  has  recognized  the  fact  that  rationality  is  essential  to  will 
and  its  freedom.  “  The  will  is  a  kind  of  causative  power  in  living 
beings  so  far  as  they  are  rational  .  .  .  Only  as  belonging  to  the 
world  of  reason  does  man  call  his  causative  power  a  will.  .  .  Every¬ 
thing  in  nature  operates  according  to  law.  But  only  a  rational 
being  has-  the  power  of  acting  in  conformity  with  the  idea  of  law, 
that  is,  on  principle  ;  in  a  word  has  will.”  1  Hence  he  calls  the 
will  the  practical  reason.  But  this  conception  of  the  will  is 
robbed  of  its  practical  significance  by  his  separation  of  the  phe¬ 
nomenal  reality  from  the  noumenon  or  thing  in  itself.  Hence  he 
teaches  that  the  phenomenal  or  empirical  ego  is  merely  a  series 
of  phenomenal  states  of  consciousness  and  is  completely  under 
necessity.  “  In  regard  to  man’s  empirical  character  there  is  no 
freedom.  .  .  If  it  were  possible  for  us  to  have  so  deep  an  insight 
into  a  man’s  way  of  thinking,  evinced  in  both  outward  and  inward 
acts,  that  every  minutest  motive  to  them  should  be  known,  as 
well  as  all  the  outward  occasions  influencing  them,  we  could  cal¬ 
culate  his  conduct  for  the  future  with  as  much  certainty  as  an 
eclipse  of  the  moon  or  sun.”  2  Yet,  according  to  Kant,  man  is 
rational  and  therefore  free.  But  it  is  the  noumenal  ego,  the  un¬ 
knowable  thing  in  itself  that  is  so.  Kant  distinguishes  two  kinds 
of  causation,  causation  in  the  sphere  of  the  rational  or  “  intelligi¬ 
ble,”  and  in  the  sphere  of  the  phenomenal  or  empirical.  Because 
man  is  reason  he  acts  causatively  in  the  former  of  these  spheres 
and  thus  is  a  free  and  self-determining  agent.  In  the  sphere  of 
the  empirical  or  phenomenal  he  acts  under  necessity;  because 
every  phenomenon  in  time  must  be  dependent  on  and  determined 
by  some  antecedent  phenomenon.  The  reason  is  the  noumenon, 
the  unknown  thing  in  itself.  As  an  organ  of  the  universal  it  does 
not  act  in  time.  He  says  :  “  Pure  reason,  as  a  faculty  of  the 
purely  intelligible,  is  not  subject  to  the  conditions  of  time.  The 
causality  of  reason  in  its  character  of  the  purely  intelligible  does 
not  begin ;  it  does  not  begin  at  a  certain  time  by  producing  an 

1  Grundlegung  zur  Metaphysik  cler  Sitten,  Abschnitt  iii.,  Werke,  Rosen- 
kranz  ed.  vol.  viii.  pp.  78,  87,  36. 

2  Ivritik  der  Reinen  Vernunft,  Transc.  Dialektik,  2tes  Buch,  II.  sect,  ix., 
iii.;  Kritik  der  Praktischen  Vernunft,  Theil  I.,  Buch  1,  Hauptstiick  3. 
Werke,  Rosenkranz,  viii.  p.  230. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  59 


effect.  If  it  did  so  it  would  itself  become  subject  to  the  law  of 
phenomena  in  nature,  which  determines  them  in  the  uniform 
sequence  of  a  series  of  causes  and  effects  in  time.  It  would  cease 
to  be  freedom,  and  become  itself  a  phenomenon  of  nature.”  Ac¬ 
cording  to  this  theory,  man’s  freedom  consists  in  the  one  act  of  the 
noumenal  ego  in  a  timeless  state  of  determining  the  whole  series 
of  conscious  phenomenal  acts  in  time.  The  totality  of  his  actions 
considered  as  a  unit  is  free ;  but  each  conscious  act  in  time  is  a 
phenomenon  determined  by  an  antecedent  phenomenon,  there¬ 
fore  done,  not  freely,  but  under  necessity.  Thus  we  are  brought 
to  the  contradiction  that  the  same  man  determines  his  whole 
action  in  free  will  and  yet  is  under  necessity  in  every  act.  But 
Kant  says  further  :  “  Reason  is  present  and  the  same  in  all  human 
actions  and  at  all  times.  But  it  does  not  itself  exist  in  time,  and 
therefore  does  not  enter  on  any  state  in  which  it  did  not  exist 
before.  It  is,  relatively  to  new  states  or  conditions,  determining, 
not  determinable.”  Because  he  regards  its  determining  action 
to  be  unconditioned  in  time,  he  is  at  liberty  to  suppose  it  present 
at  all  times  and  freely  determining  the  man  in  every  act.  Thus 
in  every  act  the  man  is  free,  because  he  determines  it  in  the  light 
of  reason.  We  may  conceive  of  this  in  two  ways.  We  may  sup¬ 
pose  it  means  the  pre-existence  of  the  human  soul.  Man’s  action 
and  character  in  this  life  were  determined  by  him  by  his  own 
action  and  character  in  a  previous  existence.  But  if  the  man 
thus  pre-existed  and  acted  as  a  finite  individual  person,  his  acts 
must  have  been  in  time,  and,  therefore,  according  to  Kant,  under 
necessity.  Then  we  must  look  behind  this  pre-existence  itself  to 
a  noumenal  ego  unconditioned  in  time.  But  only  the  absolute 
Reason  exists  thus.  It  follows  that  the  action,  character  and 
destiny  of  every  man  has  been  unchangeably  determined  by  the 
causative  action  of  the  absolute  Reason,  which  is  also  present  and 
determining  in  every  one  of  his  actions.  Thus  all  freedom  disap¬ 
pears  under  the  resistless  determinations  of  the  absolute  Reason, 
which  does  not  differ  in  practical  significance  from  resistless  fate. 

These  contradictions,  in  which  Kant  is  inextricably  involved, 
arise  from  that  separation  and  exclusion  of  the  noumenon  or 
thing  in  itself  from  the  phenomenon,  which  vitiates  all  Kant’s 
philosophy.  The  noumenal  ego  is  separated  from  the  ego  of 
consciousness  ;  it  is  an  unknowable  thing  in  itself.  If  this  funda¬ 
mental  error  is  eliminated  from  his  philosophy,  the  rational  or 


60  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


noumenal  ego  is  no  longer  excluded  from  the  phenomenal  ego  of 
consciousness,  but  fills  it  and  reveals  itself  in  it  in  all  the  phe¬ 
nomena  of  consciousness.  The  person,  being  himself  reason,  per¬ 
ceives  all  phenomena  in  the  forms  of  reason  as  well  as  in  the  forms 
of  sense.  He  perceives  himself  in  the  forms  of  reason  as  well  as  in 
the  forms  of  consciousness ;  and  in  the  form  of  consciousness  he 
perceives  himself  revealed  as  reason  and  free  will.  Then  Kant’s 
conception  of  free  will  as  inseparable  from  reason  becomes  essen¬ 
tially  the  same  with  that  which  I  have  presented.  Reason  is 
present  in  every  act  of  will,  giving  the  light  without  which  a  free 
choice  is  impossible  ;  present  also  in  the  abiding  supreme  choice 
which  gives  character  to  every  subordinate  choice  and  every  voli¬ 
tional  exertion.  And  human  reason,  being  in  the  likeness  of  the 
divine,  perceives  truths  and  laws,  as  well  as  ideals  of  perfection 
and  well-being,  which  are  eternal  and  immanent  in  God,  the 
Absolute  Reason. 

This  conception  of  the  will  is  radically  different  from  one  which 
has  been  widely  prevalent,  which  regards  the  will  as  power  having 
only  the  single  function  of  exertive  volition,  and  therefore  is  shut 
up  to  defining  freedom  of  the  will  in  terms  of  power  only,  as 
power  to  the  contrary.  It  avoids  the  ambiguities  and  perplexi¬ 
ties  in  which  the  discussion  has  commonly  been  entangled,  and 
gives  a  solid  and  comprehensive  basis  for  moral  responsibility  and 
for  a  clear-cut  definition  of  moral  character. 

In  the  examination  of  God’s  moral  government  the  first  topic 
to  be  considered  is  The  Psychological  Definition  of  Moral  and 
Religious  Character,  which  is  the  subject  of  this  chapter.  It  is  to 
be  considered  first,  because  indefinite  or  erroneous  thought  re¬ 
specting  it  has  been  the  occasion  of  much  controversy. 

The  question  is  :  Does  religious  and  moral  character  consist  in 
the  state  or  action  of  the  intellect,  or  of  the  sensibilities,  or  of 
the  will? 

This  has  often  been  confounded  with  another  and  different 
question  :  Did  man’s  religious  consciousness  originate  as  an  intel¬ 
lectual  belief,  as  a  feeling,  or  as  a  determination  of  the  will? 
This  latter  is  a  question  of  anthropology,  and  must  be  answered 
by  a  study  of  the  facts  of  the  historical  development  of  man.1 

t  See  a  full  discussion  of  this  question  in  Voigt’s  “  Fundamental  Dog- 
matik,”  pp.  55-S0.  See  also  my  “  Self-Revelation  of  God,”  pp.  S6--95,  and 
345-402. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  6 1 


The  answer  would  seem  to  be  that  the  religious  consciousness  in 
its  origin  includes  belief,  feeling,  and  voluntary  determination,  and 
it  is  only  in  reflective  thought  that  they  are  discriminated.  They 
may  be  presumed  to  be  all  present  in  every  religious  act.  The 
same  question  may  be  asked  respecting  the  moral  consciousness, 
and  the  same  answer  may  be  given.  The  confounding  of  this 
question,  respecting  the  historical  origin  of  man’s  religious  and 
moral  consciousness,  with  the  one  which  is  to  be  answered  in  this 
chapter  has  occasioned  much  perplexity  in  the  discussion. 

Much  perplexity  has  also  arisen  from  erroneous  conceptions  of 
the  will  and  its  freedom.  The  exposition  of  the  will  already  refer¬ 
red  to  is  the  clue  to  guide  us  through  the  labyrinthian  mazes  of  dis¬ 
cussion  and  controversy  respecting  moral  freedom,  responsibility, 
and  character. 

Morality  is  distinguishable  from  religion.  But  the  law  of  love 
is  the  one  and  only  standard  both  of  moral  character  and  of  reli¬ 
gious.  Religion  cannot  be  complete  without  taking  up  all  moral¬ 
ity  into  itself ;  morality  cannot  be  complete  without  love  as  well 
as  duty,  without  love  to  God  as  well  as  love  to  man.  The  reli¬ 
gious  service  of  God  is  the  doing  of  duty  to  men  in  universal 
love ;  duty  to  men  is  rightly  done  only  as  loving  service  to  God. 
Therefore  the  psychological  definition  of  moral  character  and  of 
religious  will  be  the  same,  since  the  same  principles  apply  to 
both.  Matthew  Arnold’s  definition  of  religion  as  morality  lit  up 
with  emotion  is  totally  inadequate.  Religion  recognizes  the  moral 
law  as  the  eternal  and  universal  law  of  God.  As  Kant  puts  it,  it 
is  the  recognition  of  every  duty  as  required  in  the  law  of  God  and 
done  as  a  service  to  him.  We  cannot  have  the  unity  of  a  moral 
system  without  God,  the  universal  and  supreme  Reason,  progres¬ 
sively  realizing  in  the  universe  the  eternal  rational  archetype  of 
all  possible  perfection  and  well-being  in  the  exercise  of  perfect 
and  universal  love  and  in  strict  accordance  with  the  eternal  prin¬ 
ciples  and  laws  of  Reason. 

I.  Character  in  the  Will.  —  Moral  character  psychologically 
defined  is,  primarily,  the  choice  of  the  supreme  object  of  trust 
and  service,  of  which  the  subordinate  choices  and  the  volitions 
are  the  expression  or  manifestation  ;  secondarily  it  is  the  state  of 
the  intellect  and  of  the  sensibilities,  and  the  habits  of  action,  so 
far  as  formed  or  modified  by  previous  voluntary  action. 


62 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


i.  Moral  character  is  possible  only  as  determined  by  the  will. 
A  person  forms  his  own  moral  character  by  the  free  determina¬ 
tion  of  his  will.  The  range  of  moral  character  is  commensurate 
and  coincident  with  that  of  free  will.  Man  is  morally  responsible 
only  so  far  as  in  the  exercise  of  his  own  free  will  he  determines 
what  he  does  and  what  he  becomes  and  is.  Man’s  moral  charac¬ 
ter  is  commensurate  with  his  moral  responsibility  and  thus  with 
the  action  of  his  free  will. 

Moral  character  is  distinguished  from  particular  volitional  acts 
as  an  abiding  disposition  or  preference,  an  abiding  determination 
of  the  person  in  which  he  directs  his  volitional  acts  and  which  is 
manifested  or  revealed  in  them  as  the  abiding  and  directing  bent, 
disposition,  or  preference  of  the  person.  Moral  action  and  moral 
character  are  possible  only  as  determined  in  the  exercise  of  free 
will. 

This  accords  with  the  common  moral  consciousness  of  man¬ 
kind.  As  President  Edwards  well  expresses  it :  “  An  evil  thing 
being  from  a  man  or  from  something  antecedent  in  him  is  not 
essential  to  the  original  notion  that  we  have  of  blameworthiness ; 
but  it  is  its  being  the  choice  of  the  heart ;  as  appears  by  this, 
that  if  a  thing  be  from  us  and  not  from  our  choice,  it  has  not  the 
nature  of  blameworthiness  according  to  our  natural  sense.  When 
a  thing  is  from  a  man  in  that  sense  that  it  is  from  his  will  or 
choice,  he  is  to  blame  for  it ;  so  far  as  the  will  is  in  it  blame  is  in 
it  and  no  farther.  Neither  do  we  go  any  further  in  our  notion  of 
blame  to  inquire  whether  the  bad  will  be  from  a  bad  will ;  there 
is  no  consideration  of  the  original  of  that  bad  will,  because  accord¬ 
ing  to  our  natural  apprehension,  blame  originally  consists  in  it.” 
This  is  in  accordance  with  the  teaching  of  Kant :  “  There  is  noth¬ 
ing  in  the  world,  and  we  cannot  conceive  of  anything  out  of  the 
world,  which  can  be  held  to  be  good  without  qualification,  except 
a  good-will  .  .  .  This  good-will  is  good,  not  on  account  of  its 
effects  or  its  fitness  to  accomplish  any  given  end,  but  simply  in 
itself,  as  a  right  choice  or  purpose.  Even  if  the  good-will  is  un¬ 
able  to  carry  its  purpose  into  execution,  still  the  good-will  would 
remain,  and  would  have  its  worth  in  itself,  like  a  jewel  which  glit¬ 
ters  with  its  own  lustre.”  1 

Moral  character,  as  an  abiding  voluntary  disposition  or  prefer- 

1  Grundlegung  zur  Metaphysik  der  Sitten,  erster  Abschnitt,  pp.  ii,  12, 
13,  ed.  Rosenkranz. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  63 


ence,  is  distinguished  from  what  is  inherent  in  the  nature  or 
constitution.  The  universal  moral  consciousness  of  man  forbids 
the  belief  that  a  person  is  morally  responsible  for  what  is  born  in 
him.  He  can  no  more  be  responsible  for  what  is  born  in  him 
than  he  is  for  being  born.  This  common  consciousness  is 
expressed  by  Shakespeare  :  — 

“  Some  vicious  mole  of  nature  in  them, 

As  in  their  birth,  wherein  they  are  not  guilty, 

Since  nature  cannot  choose  his  origin.” 

And  Aristotle  says  :  “  It  is  plain  that  whatever  belongs  to  nature 
is  not  in  our  own  power,  but  exists  by  some  divine  cause  in  those 
who  are  truly  fortunate.”  1  Men  are  born  with  different  tempera¬ 
ments,  capacities,  and  powers.  Man’s  free  will  cannot  transcend 
the  limits  of  his  organization  and  constitution.  But  within  those 
limits  he  can  control  and  regulate  his  constitutional  powers  and 
propensities,  he  can  repress  or  develop  them,  he  can  determine 
their  lines  of  action ;  thus  he  can  form  himself  as  he  will.  What 
a  man  becomes  by  this  self-determining  action,  as  distinguished 
from  what  he  is  by  birth  and  constitution,  is  his  character.  The 
fundamental  voluntary  determination,  preference,  or  disposition 
which  dominates  in  this  self-formation  is  his  moral  character  in  its 
primary  and  deepest  significance. 

2.  It  follows  that  the  acts  and  processes  of  the  intellect  are  not 
in  themselves  moral  acts  and  do  not  constitute  moral  and  religious 
character. 

Rational  intelligence  is  a  condition  prerequisite  to  moral  action 
and  character.  One  cannot  be  sinful  or  guilty  in  transgressing  a 
law  of  which,  through  no  neglect  or  fault  of  his  own,  he  is  totally 
ignorant.  One  cannot  even  be  a  free  agent  without  the  rational 
intelligence  which  enables  him  to  take  cognizance  of  moral  law. 
Without  this  one  cannot  do  wrong  any  more  than  a  bird  does  in 
eating  our  cherries.  But  ithe  acts  and  processes  of  the  intellect 
are  in  themselves  non-moral.  The  perception  of  an  outward 
object,  the  consciousness  of  one’s  own  existence,  a  creation  of 
imagination,  a  process  of  reasoning,  have  in  themselves  no  moral 
character.  The  mere  knowing  that  two  and  two  make  four  is  not 
in  itself  a  praiseworthy  act  of  virtue.  Even  the  knowledge  of  the 
moral  law  and  the  approval  of  it  by  the  reason,  while  they  are 
characteristic  of  moral  agency,  do  not  of  themselves  constitute 

1  Nichomachean  Ethics.  13k.  X.  chap.  ix.  6. 


64  the  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


moral  character.  The  transgressor  may  approve  in  his  conscience 
the  law  which  he  violates. 

“  Video  meliora  proboque,  deteriora  sequor.” 

Virtue  does  not  consist  in  knowing  and  approving  the  better 
course,  but  in  voluntarily  pursuing  it.  Vice  consists  in  volun¬ 
tarily  pursuing  the  wrong  course  while  knowing  and  approving 
the  right. 

The  same  is  true  of  religious  character.  All  religion  presup¬ 
poses  a  belief  in  a  god.  But  the  mere  belief,  without  voluntary 
service  rendered  to  the  god  and  the  feelings  involved  in  it,  would 
not  be  religion  nor  constitute  religious  character. 

Among  us  the  doctrine  that  either  moral  or  religious  character 
is  primarily  knowledge  or  any  intellectual  act  or  process  has  little 
currency.  It  found  more  acceptance  in  the  Greek  philosophy. 
Socrates  taught  that  righteousness  and  every  other  virtue  is  wis¬ 
dom.  His  meaning  seems  to  be,  not  merely  that  virtue  will  in¬ 
sure  the  highest  good  and,  therefore,  that  to  be  virtuous  is  both 
wise  and  prudent,  but  also  that  if  any  man  knows  what  is  beauti¬ 
ful  and  just  and  good  he  will  choose  it  above  all  other  things, 
while  those  who  do  not  know  this  will  not  attempt  to  be  virtuous 
or  if  they  do  will  miss  it.1  Thus  the  evil  in  man  is  not  sin  but 
merely  ignorance.  He  does  not  need  a  change  of  heart  or  will ; 
he  needs  only  education,  enlightenment,  so  as  to  know  what  is 
truly  the  right,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good  ;  then  he  will  certainly 
choose  it.  A  tendency  to  the  same  type  of  thought  appears  in 
other  schools  of  Greek  philosophy,  accompanied  sometimes  even 
in  the  same  author  with  different  and  higher  ethical  conceptions. 
Aristotle,  on  the  contrary,  refers  virtue  and  vice  to  the  will.  He 
teaches  that  it  is  not  sufficient  to  know  what  virtue  is,  but  to  pos¬ 
sess  and  practise  it.  He  recognizes  the  free  will  as  the  basis  of 
moral  responsibility  even  when  vice  by  long  indulgence  has  so 
attained  the  mastery  that  the  man  finds  it  seemingly  impossible 
to  resist  temptation  to  it.  But  he  declares  that  man’s  highest 
happiness  and  well-being  are  in  intellectual  action  and  philoso¬ 
phical  meditation.  He  says  that  sensuous  pleasure  is  a  happi¬ 
ness  which  any  one,  even  a  slave,  may  enjoy,  —  though  no  one 
allows  that  a  slave  has  any  claim  to  happiness  or  well-being,  as 
indeed  he  has  no  claim  to  the  real  and  highest  life.  The  activity 


1  Xenophon’s  “  Memorabilia,”  Bk.  TIL,  chap.  ix.  4  and  5. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  65 


of  the  intellect  insures  the  highest  happiness ;  because  intellec¬ 
tual  activity,  as  in  the  study  of  philosophy  for  example,  is  the 
exercise  of  that  which  is  highest  in  man  ;  it  gives  the  most  con¬ 
tinuous  happiness ;  its  pleasures  are  the  most  pure  and  stable  ;  it 
has  its  end  in  itself  and  seeks  no  result  beyond  itself,  and  is, 
therefore,  self-sufficient  and  self-satisfying ;  it  implies  leisure, 
freedom  from  care,  and  all  the  elements  commonly  making  up 
the  idea  of  a  happy  man.  In  it  is  the  germ  of  immortality ;  for, 
though  little  in  bulk,  the  intellect  surpasses  all  the  other  powers 
in  dignity  and  capacity;  it  seems  to  be  each  one’s  own  very  self. 
In  meditation  is  the  blessedness  of  the  gods ;  they  have  no  occa¬ 
sion  for  buying  and  selling,  for  work  and  business  like  man’s ; 
they  are  blessed  in  meditation  or  contemplation  alone.  Here 
he  presents  a  conception  of  the  gods  very  like  that  of  Epicurus, 
or  of  Carlyle’s  deist,  —  a  god  who  having  made  the  universe  as 
a  machine  and  set  it  in  motion,  is  occupied  ever  after  only  in 
seeing  it  go.1 

In  like  manner  some  of  the  German  philosophers  identify  re¬ 
ligion  with  knowledge.  J.  G.  Fichte  teaches  that  religion  is 
never  practical  and  was  never  intended  to  influence  our  life. 
Pure  morality  is  enough  for  that,  and  it  is  only  a  corrupt  society 
that  has  to  use  religion  as  an  impulse  to  moral  action.  It  gives 
the  man  a  clear  insight  into  himself,  answers  the  highest  questions, 
and  thus  imparts  to  us  a  complete  harmony  with  ourselves  and  a 
thorough  sanctification  to  our  minds.  It  needs  no  argument  to 
prove  that  a  mere  intellectual  assent  to  the  idea  of  God  presented 
by  this  philosophy  is  not  religion. 

The  practical  tendency  of  the  belief  that  either  moral  or  re¬ 
ligious  character  is  primarily  of  the  intellect  is  evil.  It  tends  to 
substitute  intellectual  culture  for  moral  and  religious  develop¬ 
ment,  the  wisdom  of  man  for  the  law  of  God,  prudence  for  duty, 
interest  in  science  and  art  for  trust  in  God  and  love  to  God  and 
man,  and  thus  to  obliterate  the  very  ideas  of  law,  of  duty,  and  of 
the  eternal  distinction  of  right  and  wrong.  Thus  it  tends  to  re¬ 
strict  the  possibility  of  virtue  and  the  service  of  the  true  God  to 
the  cultured  few,  trained  by  instruction  in  philosophy  in  some 
portico  or  academy,  or  initiated  into  the  mysteries  of  an  esoteric 
religion.  It  cannot  proclaim  the  privilege  of  every  one  who  will 
to  trust  in  God  and  live  in  communion  with  him,  and  the  obliga- 

1  Nichomachean  Ethics,  Bk.  x.,  chaps.  9,  7,  8. 

VOL.  it.  —  5 


66  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


tion  of  all  to  obey  the  universal  law  of  love,  conformity  with  which 
is  free  to  every  person  in  every  condition  and  every  grade  of  cul¬ 
ture  and  will  transform  him  into  the  likeness  of  God  who  is  love. 
Thus  it  issues  in  exclusiveness  and  caste.  Even  Aristotle,  in  his 
eloquent  exhibition  of  the  dignity  and  happiness  of  philosophical 
meditation,  does  not  recognize  the  promotion  of  any  interest  of 
mankind  by  the  study,  but  only  the  enjoyment  of  the  student 
himself  in  the  enthusiasm  of  his  own  thinking.  On  the  contrary 
he  presents  it  as  an  excellence  of  intellectual  activity  that  it  has 
no  end  beyond  itself.  He  makes  no  allusion  to  the  life  of  uni¬ 
versal  love  in  trust  in  God  and  service  to  God  and  man,  and  the 
development  of  the  man  thereby  to  his  highest  perfection,  well¬ 
being  and  blessedness.  In  Aristotle’s  praise  of  meditation,  with¬ 
drawn  from  the  active  life  of  the  world  and  dissociated  from  all 
promotion  of  the  interests  of  mankind,  as  constituting  the  high¬ 
est  and  most  blessed  life,  we  seem  to  see  a  type  of  thought 
similar  to  that  which  has  led  Buddhist  devotees  to  the  life  of 
asceticism  and  meditation  in  the  hope  of  becoming  a  Buddha, 
the  Enlightened. 

This  tendency  to  substitute  culture  for  virtue  and  religion,  to 
restrict  the  highest  moral  and  religious  development  and  well¬ 
being  to  the  cultured  few,  and  so  to  introduce  caste  into  the 
moral  and  religious  life  and  to  consign  the  many  to  hopeless 
inferiority  and  separation  from  the  true  God,  is  inherent  in  the 
Hellenism  which  Goethe,  Schiller,  Carlyle,  Matthew  Arnold,  and 
others  would  thrust  into  our  civilization  as  a  substitute  for  Chris¬ 
tianity.  If  thus  thrust  in,  it  would  thrust  out  the  all-pervading 
idea  of  the  supreme,  inviolable,  divine  law  of  love  binding  on  all 
alike,  the  consciousness  of  the  duty  and  privilege  of  all  to  obey 
God’s  law,  and  the  consciousness  of  God’s  love  to  all,  revealed 
and  made  an  abiding  power  of  spiritual  renovation  in  Christ  and 
his  Spirit  of  holiness,  and  seeking  to  draw  all  men  away  from  sin 
and  evil  to  be  like  God  in  the  life  of  universal  love. 

3.  The  sensibilities  or  feelings  are  essential  to  moral  and  re¬ 
ligious  character  as  motives  to  the  will  and  as  emotions  resulting 
from  its  action ;  but  in  themselves  they  are  non-moral,  neither 
right  nor  wrong.  This  is  true  not  only  of  the  appetites  and  the 
natural  or  instinctive  desires  and  affections,  such  as  acquisitive¬ 
ness,  the  desire  of  esteem,  curiosity,  anger,  parental  and  filial 
love,  but  also  of  the  distinctively  rational  susceptibilities,  the 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  67 


scientific,  moral,  aesthetic,  and  prudential  motives  and  emotions, 
the  feelings  connected  with  self-respect,  the  sense  of  honor  and 
worthiness,  and  the  religious  feelings. 

The  feelings  are  essential  prerequisites  to  moral  and  religious 
character  as  motives  to  action,  without  which  man  would  never 
act.  He  would  starve  to  death  because  he  would  feel  no  motive 
to  eat.  If  we  could  conceive  a  being  of  pure  intelligence  with¬ 
out  feeling,  it  would  merely  know  without  any  interest  in  knowing 
or  in  anything  known.  It  would  feel  neither  pleasure  nor  pain, 
joy  or  sorrow,  desire  or  affection.  It  would  never  act,  for  it 
would  have  no  motive  to  act.  And  susceptibility  to  the  distinc¬ 
tively  rational  motives  is  essential  to  any  free  moral  action.  If 
man  were  susceptible  only  of  natural  appetites  and  instincts,  he 
could  never  rise  above  them  to  the  consciousness  of  the  higher 
motives  and  interests  of  the  rational  and  spiritual  life.  He  would 
be  like  the  brutes,  impelled  by  the  instincts  of  nature  with  no 
power  to  rise  above  and  control  them. 

But  while  the  feelings  are  essential  prerequisites  to  moral  action 
and  character,  they  are  not  in  themselves  moral  action  or  char¬ 
acter,  and  moral  character  cannot  be  predicated  of  them. 

This  also  is  accordant  with  universal  moral  consciousness. 
The  range  of  feeling  is  not  commensurate  with  the  range  of  free 
determination  and  moral  responsibility.  One  cannot  blame  him¬ 
self  for  being  hungry,  unless  it  is  in  consequence  of  his  own  wilful 
neglect.  All  the  feelings  belong  to  man’s  nature  or  constitution. 
They  are  not  directly  subject  to  the  will ;  they  will  not  come  and 
go  at  the  word  of  command.  They  rise  instinctively  in  the 
presence  of  the  objects  which  call  them  forth.  We  cannot  fill 
our  souls  at  will  with  joy  or  sorrow,  with  hope  or  fear,  with  pity 
or  anger.  Therefore  the  feelings  cannot  in  themselves  constitute 
moral  or  religious  character.  We  are  conscious  of  moral  respon¬ 
sibility  in  them  only  so  far  as  we  have  determined  their  action 
by  our  own  free  wills. 

The  belief  that  moral  character  is  primarily  in  the  feelings 
practically  tends  to  evil.  It  gives  no  basis  for  a  supreme  and 
universal  moral  law  and  the  immutable  distinction  between  right 
and  wrong.  It  issues  in  substituting  sentiment  for  duty,  —  in  senti¬ 
mental  admiration  of  the  criminal  and  sympathy  with  him,  instead 
of  indignation  at  his  crime,  sympathy  with  his  victim,  and  reason¬ 
able,  righteous,  and  firm  support  of  the  law  and  of  the  order  of 


68  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


society,  —  in  gush  of  feeling  instead  of  self-sacrificing  love  and  its 
wisely-planned,  steadfast,  and  painstaking  service. 

The  belief  that  religion  is  primarily  an  excitement  of  the  sensi¬ 
bilities,  natural  or  rational,  has  analogous  evil  practical  tendencies. 
These  evils  are  apparent  in  the  history  of  mysticism,  which  is  the 
name  by  which  this  type  of  religion  is  designated.1  This  type 
of  religion  appears  in  many  and  widely  different  forms.  It  ap¬ 
pears  in  the  intense  and  lofty  aspirations  and  the  ecstatic  emotions 
of  a  true  though  one-sided  piety,  — in  the  animal  excitement  of 
heathen  worship,  as  in  the  prophets  of  Baal  leaping  and  shouting 
and  cutting  themselves  with  knives,  —  in  ignorant  and  noisy,  and 
sometimes  brawling  and  ferocious  fanaticism.2  Here  also  belong 
the  phenomena  of  leaping,  whirling,  and  dancing,  of  swooning  and 
falling,  of  babbling,  of  convulsions,  of  epidemics  of  howling  like 
wolves,  crowing  like  cocks,  mewing  like  cats,  occasioned  by 
intense  religious  excitement ;  phenomena  of  this  type  have 
appeared  in  all  ages  and  in  many  religions.3  And  it  is  the  same 
type  of  religion  which  appears  in  worship  in  which  the  aesthetic 
predominates,  in  .architecture,  music,  vestments,  processions, 
elaborate  ritual,  and  all  the  solemn  pomp  and  ceremony  of  wor¬ 
ship.  It  is  the  same  in  the  naturalistic  religion  of  those  who 

“  W orship  nature  in  the  hill  and  valley, 

Not  knowing  what  they  love.” 

These  all,  exceedingly  different  as  they  are  in  form,  are  manifest¬ 
ations  of  the  same  type,  the  religion  which  is  primarily  the 
excitement  of  the  feelings.  The  brawling  vulgarity  of  fanaticism 
and  the  refined  aestheticism  of  the  pantheist  are  the  same  in 
kind,  a  religion  of  the  feelings,  which  may  be  fully  developed 
without  any  change  of  will.  These  excitements  may  reach  the 
highest  pitch,  they  may  be  aesthetic  or  sympathetic  emotions  of 
which  Christ  himself  is  the  object,  and  yet  manifest  no  right 
religious  character.  A  striking  instance  is  Rousseau’s  famous 
panegyric  of  Christ.4  Another  remarkable  example  is  Handel. 
In  composing  the  oratorio  of  the  “  Messiah  ”  he  would  burst  into 
tears.  A  friend  coming  in  when  he  was  setting  to  music  the 

1  Self-Revelation  of  God,  pp.  1 22-1 27. 

2  As  in  the  English  Bryanites ;  Life  of  Mr.  Hawker,  Vicar  of  Morwen- 
stowe,  pp.  184-189. 

3  Tylor,  “  Primitive  Culture,”  vol.  ii.  pp.  379  k 

4  Tmile,  livre  iv.,  pp.  369,  370;  ed.  Firmin  Didot  freres,  1S62. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  69 

words,  “  He  was  despised  and  rejected  of  men,”  found  him  sob¬ 
bing.  His  servant,  bringing  in  his  chocolate,  sometimes  found 
him  weeping  as  he  composed.  He  said  of  his  feelings  in  compos¬ 
ing  the  “  Alleluia  chorus  ”  :  “I  did  think  I  did  see  all  heaven  be¬ 
fore  me  and  the  great  God  himself.”  And  yet  at  that  time  he  is 
said  to  have  been  passionate,  intemperate,  profane,  and  ungodly. 

This  prevalence  of  religious  excitability  in  various  forms  among 
all  races  of  men  and  in  all  ages  is  emphatic  evidence  that  man  is 
constituted  with  religious  susceptibilities,  so  that  his  soul  instinct¬ 
ively  cries  out  for  God.  There  are  no  human  susceptibilities  by 
awakening  which  man  can  be  wrought  to  more  intense  excite¬ 
ment  than  the  religious.  Witness  the  enthusiasm  of  confessors 
and  martyrs,  of  missionaries,  of  workers  in  all  the  varied  spheres 
of  Christian  work,  and  the  exalted  spiritual  blessedness  of  Chris¬ 
tians  in  communion  with  God.  The  objection  is  not  to  appeal¬ 
ing  to  the  feelings,  but  to  exciting  them  merely  to  flame  up  in 
their  own  heat,  instead  of  stimulating  to  genuine  Christian  work 
and  expending  themselves  in  that,  —  or  to  unwisely  directing  them 
when  aroused.  Therefore  the  aim  of  preaching  is  not  merely  to 
enlighten  and  convince  the  intellect,  but  by  this  to  awaken  man’s 
susceptibilities  to  moral  and  spiritual  motives  and  emotions.  It 
appeals  to  his  interest  in  truth ;  it  seeks  to  arouse  his  moral  and 
religious  susceptibilities ;  it  addresses  the  aesthetic  feelings,  as  in 
holding  up  to  his  admiration  the  beauty  of  Christ’s  life  of  love  or 
in  appealing  to  his  own  aspirations  to  realize  ideals  or  to  advance 
to  larger  attainments,  a  fuller  development,  a  more  complete  pos¬ 
session  and  mastery  of  all  his  powers,  to  a  higher  and  better  life ; 
it  appeals  to  his  fears  and  to  his  hopes,  to  his  prudence,  to  his 
sense  of  what  is  noble  and  worthy  of  a  rational  man.  Nor  must 
the  appeal  be  confined  to  the  rational  and  spiritual  feelings.  It 
may  be  addressed  also  to  the  natural  or  instinctive  desires  and 
affections.  If  some  of  the  young  people  are  becoming  unusually 
interested  in  seeking  God,  it  is  legitimate  to  use  the  sympathy  of 
young  friends,  the  enthusiasm  and  inspiration  of  a  great  assembly, 
the  impetus  of  a  popular  movement  as  means  of  reaching  and 
awakening  the  moral  and  religious  feelings.  And  we  are  not  to 
depend  upon  preaching  alone.  Singing  and  music  touch  the 
heart  with  religious  impressions,  and  worship  in  all  its  forms  ex¬ 
presses  and  inflames  spiritual  affections.  It  is  legitimate  also  to 
address  the  spiritual  in  man  through  the  eye  as  well  as  through 


70  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

the  ear.  Church  architecture  is  not  to  be  neglected.  Use  may 
be  made  of  flowers,  vestments,  whatever  may  make  the  worship 
attractive,  arrest  attention,  add  to  the  solemnity  of  the  service 
and  touch  the  spiritual  feelings.  In  baptism  and  the  Lord’s  sup¬ 
per  our  Lord  recognizes  the  need  of  bringing  God  and  his  truth 
to  the  heart  through  the  eye  and  the  other  senses  as  well  as 
through  the  ear  in  the  ministry  of  the  word.  And  the  churches 
properly  make  auxiliary  arrangements,  like  Sunday  school  picnics 
and  church  sociables,  not  intended  for  direct  religious  influence, 
but  to  promote  more  intimate  acquaintance  among  those  who  are 
identified  with  the  congregation,  to  attract  others  and  bring  them 
under  the  influence  of  the  church  and  its  ministrations,  and  so 
indirectly  to  increase  its  spiritual  power.  The  fear  of  excitement 
in  religion  is  often  undiscriminating  and  excessive.  The  churches 
at  present  have  more  to  fear  from  indifference  and  spiritual 
stupor  than  from  excitement. 

The  regulative  principle  is  that  all  forms  and  auxiliaries  of 
spiritual  worship  and  work  be  really  instrumental  in  awakening 
spiritual  feeling,  increasing  spiritual  power  and  widening  the 
reach  of  spiritual  influence.  When  Luther  was  told  that  one  of 
the  Protestant  clergy  preached  in  a  surplice,  he  said,  “  Let  him 
wear  two  if  he  preach  Christ.”  There  must  be  spiritual  faith  and 
love  enough  to  vitalize  all  these  forms  and  instrumentalities  and 
make  them  wings  to  bear  the  soul  to  heaven.  The  danger  always 
is  of  substituting  the  auxiliary  and  the  instrument  for  the  spiritual 
feeling  and  life  it  was  intended  to  evoke,  of  resting  in  the  form 
and  the  ceremonial  and  the  ritual,  instead  of  rising  by  it  to  com¬ 
munion  with  God  and  being  quickened  by  it  in  spiritual  life  and 
power.  The  people  may  worship  the  beautiful  and  costly  church 
edifice  more  than  they  worship  God  ;  the  architect  in  realizing  his 
aesthetic  ideal  may  have  made  the  building  a  failure  as  an  audience 
room,  and  so,  entirely  unfit  for  the  end  for  which  it  was  intended  as 
a  house  for  the  ministry  of  the  word  ;  admiration  of  fine  music  may 
crowd  out  devotion ;  sociability  may  be  substituted  for  religion ; 
ceremonial  and  ritual  may  take  the  place  of  spiritual  worship.1 

1  Augustine,  speaking  of  his  delight  in  music  and  in  the  singing  in  the 
church,  expresses  a  fear,  which  he  himself  says  was  “over  anxious,”  lest  it 
was  mere  pleasure  in  the  music  instead  of  devout  praise  and  worship  of 
God.  “At  other  times,  shunning  over-anxiously  this  deception,  I  err  in  too 
great  strictness,  and  sometimes  to  that  degree  as  to  wish  the  whole  melody 
of  sweet  music  which  is  used  with  David’s  Psalter  banished  from  my  ears 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  7 1 


The  impression  that  religion  consists  primarily  in  emotion 
creates  in  many  a  morbid  demand  for  it.  It  will  not  come  on 
demand.  Failure  to  attain  a  satisfactory  intensity  of  anguish  for 
sin,  such  as  some  converts  have  reported,  leads  some  to  give  up 
seeking  God  and  often  beclouds  the  hope  and  disheartens  the 
action  of  Christians.  The  demand  is  for  an  impossibility ;  for  so 
soon  as  the  person  should  begin  to  feel  the  desired  distress  he 
would  immediately  rejoice  and  be  very  glad.  Failure  to  attain 
the  joy,  rapture,  ecstasy,  which  some  have  experienced,  leads  to 
discouragement  and  gloom,  or  to  violent  attempts  to  arouse  feel¬ 
ing  ;  so  that  mere  animal  excitement  is  sometimes  mistaken  for 
extraordinary  religious  experience.  A  minister  said  to  a  man 
shouting  in  a  prayer-meeting,  “  Are  you  as  happy  as  your  shout¬ 
ing  indicates?  ”  The  man  replied,  “  No  ;  I  am  shouting  in  order 
to  get  happy.”  One  is  not  to  make  direct  efforts  to  get  up  feel¬ 
ing,  any  more  than  to  put  on  a  pleasant  smile  or  a  sorrowful 
expression  on  the  face,  or  to  shed  tears.  We  are  not  to  seek  the 
exhilaration  of  religious  ecstasy  merely  for  our  own  enjoyment  of 
it,  so  that  it  becomes  a  sort  of  spiritual  intoxication.  Its  proper 
outcome  is  the  quickening  of  our  energies  in  loving  service  to 
God  and  man.  If  we  trust  God  and  are  serving  him  in  righteous¬ 
ness  and  good-will  to  men,  devoting  our  energies  to  the  advance¬ 
ment  of  Christ’s  kingdom,  we  may  leave  our  feelings  to  their  own 
spontaneity. 

4.  The  conclusion  is  that  moral  responsibility,  moral  action, 
and  moral  character  are  of  the  will.  They  exist  only  within  the 
range  of  what  the  person  freely  determines  by  the  will.1  Hence 

and  the  church’s  too;  and  that  mode  seems  to  me  safer,  which  I  remember 
to  have  been  told  me  of  Athanasius,  bishop  of  Alexandria,  who  made  the 
reader  of  the  psalm  utter  it  with  so  slight  inflection  of  the  voice,  that  it  was 
nearer  speaking  than  singing.  Yet  when  I  remember  the  tears  I  shed  at 
the  psalmody  of  the  church  in  the  beginning  of  my  recovered  faith  ;  and 
how  at  this  time  I  am  moved,  not  with  the  singing  but  with  the  things  sung, 
when  they  are  sung  with  a  clear  voice  and  modulation  most  suitable,  I 
acknowledge  the  great  use  of  this  institution.”  (Confessions,  Bk.  X. 
xxxiii.  49,  50.)  Fine  poetry  may  quicken  the  spiritual  feeling.  It  may  also 
displace  devotional  hymns.  The  late  Rev.  Dr.  Muhlenberg,  himself  some¬ 
times  charged  with  excessive  ritualism,  said :  “  Keble  has  written  the 
“  Christian  Year.’  But  the  whole  School  has  never  produced,  as  Wesley  did, 
one  great  hymn  of  the  Christian  people.” 

1  As  Novalis  says,  “  Character  is  a  completely  fashioned  will  ”  ;  and 
James  Martineau  says,  “  Character  consists,  so  far  as  it  is  good,  in  right 
choice.”  (Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  57.) 


72  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


virtue  and  vice,  holiness  and  sin,  are  properly  said  to  be  voluntary. 
But  the  word  voluntary  has  two  applications.  It  is  applied  to 
the  determinations  of  the  will  themselves.  A  choice  or  volition 
is  a  voluntary  act.  It  is  applied  also  to  acts  and  states  resulting 
from  the  determinations  of  the  will.  When  a  person  throws  a 
stone,  the  muscular  action  results  from  a  determination  of  the 
will,  and  so  is  called  a  voluntary  act.  When  one  sets  himself  to 
read  a  book  or  to  investigate  a  subject,  the  intellectual  action 
results  from  a  determination  of  the  will,  and  so  is  said  to  be  vol¬ 
untary.  All  intellectual  opinions  and  prejudices,  all  states  of  the 
intellect  as  disciplined,  cultivated,  and  well-informed,  or  as  undis¬ 
ciplined  and  ignorant,  all  excitement  of  feeling  and  all  permanent 
excitability  or  torpidity  of  feeling,  and  all  habits  of  action  physical 
or  mental,  so  far  as  resulting  from  the  determinations  of  the  will, 
are  said  to  be  voluntary  and  the  person  is  held  responsible  for 
them. 

5.  Moral  character  is  voluntary  in  both  these  applications  of 
the  word.  It  may,  therefore,  be  distinguished  as  character  in  its 
primary  and  in  its  secondary  meaning.  Primarily,  moral  char¬ 
acter  is  the  fundamental  determination  of  the  will,  the  supreme 
choice,  directing  all  the  energies  to  their  supreme  object,  and 
manifested  in  the  subordinate  choices  and  the  volitional  acts ; 
secondarily,  it  is  the  state  of  the  intellect  and  sensibilities,  and 
the  habits  of  action,  as  formed  or  modified  by  the  person  in  the 
action  of  his  own  free  will. 

II.  Character  in  its  Primary  Meaning.  —  Moral  character 
in  its  primary  meaning  is  the  supreme  choice,  manifested  and  ex¬ 
pressed  in  subordinate  choices  and  volitions  accordant  with  it. 
It  is  the  choice  of  the  supreme  object  of  the  person’s  entire  vol¬ 
untary  action. 

1.  The  object  of  the  supreme  choice  must  be  a  person  or 
persons.  It  must  be  in  the  sphere  of  personality.  We  find  two 
spheres  of  objects  that  may  be  chosen.  The  one  is  objects  to 
be  acquired,  possessed,  and  used ;  this  is  the  sphere  of  the  im¬ 
personal.  The  other  is  persons  to  be  trusted  and  served  ;  this  is 
the  sphere  of  the  personal. 

It  is  evident  that  the  object  of  a  supreme  choice,  whether  the 
choice  be  right  or  wrong,  cannot  be  in  the  sphere  of  the  imper¬ 
sonal,  of  any  object  or  product,  material  or  immaterial,  to  be 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  73 


acquired,  possessed,  and  used.  For  always  the  further  question 
must  arise,  For  whom  do  you  seek  to  acquire  it,  for  yourself  or  for 
another  to  possess  and  use  it?  It  must  be  the  object  of  a  sub¬ 
ordinate  choice,  because  it  is  the  choice  of  an  object  for  an 
ulterior  end.  But  a  person  is  never  to  be  chosen  as  an  object 
to  be  acquired,  possessed,  and  used.  He  is  an  end  in  himself  to 
be  trusted  and  served,  the  trust  and  service  being  according  to 
wisdom  and  righteousness,  in  conformity  with  the  principles  and 
laws  of  reason,  and  for  the  realization  of  its  ideals  of  perfection 
and  well-being.  Accordingly  Kant  teaches  that  personality  is  the 
realm  of  ends,  and  this  is  one  of  his  important  services  in  bringing 
ethics  back  to  the  Christian  standard.  Our  Lord  teaches  that  the 
sum  of  all  worldly  values  is  not  equal  to  the  worth  of  a  man  (Matth. 
xvi.  26).  He  has  a  dignity  and  worth  above  all  price.  Persons 
being  in  the  likeness  of  God  are  never  to  be  acquired,  owned, 
and  used.  It  follows  that  every  choice  or  determination  of  an 
object  to  which  the  energies  are  to  be  directed,  is  really  in  its 
full  significance  the  choice  of  a  person  or  persons  as  the  ultimate 
object  to  which  the  action  is  directed  by  the  self-determination. 
The  object  of  the  wrong  supreme  choice  is  self.  The  object  of 
the  right  supreme  choice  is  the  whole  sphere  of  personality,  your¬ 
self,  your  neighbor  as  yourself,  —  that  is,  your  fellowmen  equally 
with  yourself  so  far  as  they  come  within  the  reach  of  your  influ¬ 
ence,  —  and  God  as  supreme.  This  whole  sphere  of  personality  as 
the  object  of  all  our  activity  is  declared  by  Christ  to  be  the  su¬ 
preme  end  :  “  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteous¬ 
ness,”  that  is,  the  transformation  of  all  human  society  into  the 
kingdom  of  God,  bringing  men  into  harmony,  union,  and  co¬ 
operation  with  God  in  realizing  in  the  moral  system  the  highest 
ideal  of  perfection  and  well-being,  in  accordance  with  the  eternal 
principles  and  laws  of  reason.  And  because  the  right  supreme 
choice  is  of  persons,  Christian  ethics  does  not  consist  in  abstrac¬ 
tions,  but  deals  with  persons  in  the  concrete.  This  is  seen  in  the 
Christian  law  of  love.  It  requires  supreme  love,  not  of  property, 
office,  or  fame  :  not,  as  many  ethical  writers  have  taught,  of  hap¬ 
piness,  of  truth,  of  virtue,  of  holiness,  not  even  of  love  itself,  the 
amor  amoris  of  some  of  the  old  divines,  but  of  persons,  of  your¬ 
self  equally  with  your  neighbor,  and  of  both  yourself  and  your 
neighbor  in  subordination  to  supreme  love  to  God.  Christian 
ethics  does  not  evaporate  in  abstractions,  but  holds  us  fast  to  the 


74  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


love  of  persons.  It  recognizes  the  greatness  of  man  and  the 
sublimity  of  his  life  as  a  worker  with  God  in  universal  good-will, 
regulated  in  its  exercise  by  wisdom  and  righteousness  in  conform¬ 
ity  with  the  truth  and  law  of  reason  eternal  in  God,  to  bring  our¬ 
selves  and  all  men  into  union  with  him,  and  to  transform  the  whole 
realm  of  personality  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 

If  now  it  is  asked  in  what  action  the  supreme  choice  will  mani¬ 
fest  itself,  the  question  has  already  been  answered.  All  human 
action  is  either  receptive  or  productive,  taking  in  or  putting  forth. 
When  one  seeks  to  obtain  or  receive  something  from  a  person, 
himself  or  another,  for  his  own  possession  and  use,  it  is  an  act  of 
trust.  When  putting  forth  his  energies  to  produce  something  for 
a  person,  himself  or  another,  it  is  an  act  of  service.  When  we 
choose  a  person  as  the  supreme  object  of  our  action,  the  action 
in  which  it  is  manifested  will  be  trust  and  service.  If  one  chooses 
self  as  his  supreme  object,  he  will  trust  himself  in  self-sufficiency 
and  self-glorifying,  and  serve  himself  in  self-will  and  self-seeking. 
If  he  chooses  himself,  his  neighbor  as  having  equal  rights  with 
himself,  and  God  as  supreme,  he  will  trust  and  serve  them.  The 
particular  acts  of  trust  and  service  to  particular  persons  in  par¬ 
ticular  circumstances  must  be  determined,  in  wisdom  and  righteous¬ 
ness,  by  each  person  for  himself.  But  every  particular  act  will 
be  such  as,  according  to  the  person’s  best  judgment,  will  be  most 
effective  in  advancing  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  so  progressively 
realizing  the  highest  ideal  of  perfection  and  well-being. 

A  finite  being  must  receive  before  it  can  produce.  God  alone 
can  produce  without  having  previously  received.  This  is  a  law 

of  all  animal  and  vegetable  life,  and  of  all  inorganic  bodies  exert- 

0 

ing  motor  force.  The  same  is  a  law  of  the  free  action  of  finite 
personal  beings.  In  personal  beings  the  reception  is  not  passive, 
like  a  cistern  receiving  water,  but  is  free  action.  The  person  in 
the  consciousness  of  dependence  and  need  freely  trusts  himself  or 
some  interest  of  himself  to  another  to  manage  it  for  him,  or  to 
give  him  guidance  and  help  in  the  management.  Thus  by  his 
own  free  action  he  receives  help  from  the  person  trusted.  The 
receptive  action,  considered  as  actively  committing  an  interest  to 
another,  is  called  trust.  Thus  a  sick  person  trusts  his  life  to  a 
physician  and  receives  his  care ;  a  mother  trusts  her  child  to  a 
nurse,  a  man  trusts  his  money  to  a  company  in  whose  capital  he 
invests  it.  This  receptive  action  is  necessary  on  account  of  man’s 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  75 


finiteness,  dependence,  and  insufficiency.  Human  society  exists 
only  by  continuous  reciprocal  trust  and  service.  On  account  of 
man’s  dependence  on  God,  his  right  character  can  begin  only  in 
faith,  —  that  is,  in  trusting  himself  and  all  his  interests  for  time  and 
eternity  to  God,  and  thus  willingly  accepting  his  grace,  freely 
offered  to  all  who  trust  him.  His  Christian  life  begins  in  trusting 
the  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself. 

The  productive  energy  corresponds  to  man’s  power  and  free¬ 
dom.  As  exerted  for  some  person,  himself  or  another,  it  is 
properly  called  service.  The  products  of  energy  thus  exerted  in 
the  service  of  a  person  may  be  material,  as  food,  clothing,  wealth 
of  every  kind ;  or  immaterial,  as  learning,  skill,  physical,  intel¬ 
lectual,  moral,  and  spiritual  development.  These  are  all  products 
to  be  got,  possessed,  and  used  by  some  person.  Within  this 
sphere  of  what  can  be  got,  possessed,  and  used,  the  highest  and 
ultimate  object  of  choice  should  be  well-being,  or  the  good  esti¬ 
mated  by  reason  as  having  true  worth ;  and  all  products,  material 
or  immaterial,  which  are  the  legitimate  means  of  getting  this  well¬ 
being,  are  rightly  chosen  as  relative  good. 

Therefore  the  object  of  the  supreme  choice  must  be  a  person 
or  persons.  The  object  of  the  right  supreme  choice  is  God  in 
his  relation  to  all  personal  beings  in  the  moral  system ;  or,  it  is 
God  and  all  rational  beings  in  their  real  relations  in  the  unity  of 
the  universal  moral  system.  By  this  choice  all  the  person’s 
energy,  receptive  and  productive,  is  directed,  as  trust  and  ser¬ 
vice,  to  God  as  supreme,  and  to  our  neighbor  as  ourselves  in 
our  common  relations  to  God  in  the  universal  moral  system. 
In  the  wrong  supreme  choice  a  person  chooses  himself  as  the 
supreme  object  of  trust  and  service.  Thus  he  alienates  himself 
from  God  and  his  neighbor,  and  directs  his  energies  into  a  life  of 
self-sufficiency,  self-will,  self-seeking,  and  self-glorifying.1 

2.  The  supreme  choice,  and  it  alone,  combines  the  essentials 
of  moral  character  in  its  primary  meaning,  as  psychologically 
defined.  These  are  freedom,  continuity,  unity,  and  spontaneity. 

In  the  first  place,  it  combines  the  two  essentials,  permanence, 
or  continuity,  and  freedom.  Character  is  distinguished  from 
volitional  acts  as  a  continuous,  abiding  disposition  which  expresses 
itself  in  the  action.  The  natural  temperament,  disposition,  and 
affections  are  abiding  and  continuous.  But  as  inherent  in  the 

1  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  357-359,  and  266-278, 


j6  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


nature  or  constitution  they  are  not  free.  Therefore  they  cannot 
be  in  themselves  moral  character.  Freedom  is  also  essential  to 
moral  character;  therefore  character  in  its  primary  meaning 
must  be  the  character  of  the  will.  The  volitional  acts  are  free 
acts  of  will,  but  they  are  not  abiding  and  continuous.  They 
cannot  constitute  moral  character.  A  choice  is  at  once  con¬ 
tinuous  and  free.  Thus  it  constitutes  character  as  at  once 
continuous  and  free.  It  carries  freedom  through  and  through 
the  character ;  it  is  free  in  its  origin  and  in  all  its  continuance 
and  manifestations ;  for  it  is  in  its  essence  a  free  choice  or 
elective  preference  of  the  will.  By  continued  action  it  may 
become  so  fixed  as  to  be  a  sort  of  second  nature  ;  yet  even  then 
it  is  still  free  choice.  Choice  alone  can  combine  these  two 
elements  of  moral  character,  freedom  and  continuity. 

On  account  of  its  continuity  a  choice  is  not  always  present  in 
the  consciousness ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  natural  temperament 
and  disposition.  But  whenever  the  object  chosen  is  thought  of 
in  contrast  with  an  object  that  would  displace  it,  the  person  is 
conscious  that  it  is  his  own  free  choice.  And  it  will  continue 
so  until  in  his  freedom  he  chooses  another  object  instead  of  it. 
For  the  same  reason  it  is  not  essential  to  a  choice  that  the 
person  remember  the  moment  when  he  first  made  it.  A  Chris¬ 
tian  may  not  remember  the  moment  when  he  first  chose  God  in 
Christ  as  his  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service.  It  is  sufficient 
that  he  is  conscious  that  God  is  the  object  of  his  supreme  choice 
now.  One  does  not  remember  the  precise  moment  in  his  child¬ 
hood  when  he  first  became  aware  of  moral  obligation  and  duty, 
and  made  his  first  responsible  and  moral  determination.  From 
the  darkness  and  mystery  of  his  beginning  he  gradually  emerges 
into  the  clear  consciousness  that  he  is  under  moral  law.  He 
cannot  tell  the  first  moment  of  moral  consciousness  any  more 
than  of  the  dawn.  But  he  knows  it  now,  as  he  knows  the  day¬ 
light  after  the  sun  is  risen.  He  does  not  always  think  of  the 
choice  which  determines  his  actions  any  more  than  of  the  day¬ 
light  when  he  is  working  by  it.  But  whenever  he  thinks  of  it, 
it  presents  itself  in  the  full  light  of  his  consciousness  as  his  own 
present  free  choice. 

Another  essential  of  moral  character  is  unity.  There  must  be 
some  supreme  and  dominant  determination  which  gives  unity  to 
action  as  well  as  continuity,  while  always  preserving  the  moral 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  77 


freedom.  There  may  be  a  unity  springing  from  natural  tempera¬ 
ment  or  disposition.  We  speak  of  the  ruling  passion.  But  in 
this  case  the  person  is  driven  by  the  instincts  and  impulses  of 
nature.  He  drops  into  brute  life,  —  as  a  tiger  by  nature  ravens  in 
blood,  a  sheep  crops  the  grass.  There  must  be  a  ruling  deter¬ 
mination  which  is  continuous  and  dominant  and  at  the  same  time 
free.  This  must  be  a  choice  of  the  will.  It  cannot  be  a  choice 
of  any  object  to  be  acquired,  owned,  and  used ;  for  all  these 
choices  are  in  their  essence  subordinate.  It  can  only  be  the 
supreme  choice  of  a  person  or  persons  as  the  supreme  object  of 
all  the  energies,  receptive  and  productive,  in  trust  and  service. 
This  determines  the  direction  of  all  the  energies  and  thus  insures 
unity  as  well  as  continuity  and  freedom. 

A  fourth  essential  element  of  moral  character  is  spontaneity. 
Under  the  impulse  of  instinctive  appetites,  desires,  affections,  and 
passions  of  his  nature  one  acts  spontaneously.  He  follows  his  bent. 
He  needs  no  constraint  to  compel  him  to  seek  what  he  desires,  nor 
restraint  to  repel  him  from  what  is  repulsive.  But  this  spontaneity 
in  itself  is  without  freedom.  It  is  the  same  in  kind  with  that  of  the 
brutes  in  following  their  natural  instincts.  It  is  not  a  spontaneity 
of  character  but  of  nature.  Because  character  is  primarily  choice 
it  has  a  similar  spontaneity ;  for  choice  in  its  essence  carries  in 
it  preference  for  the  object  chosen.  A  volition  is  free,  but  it 
does  not  of  itself  create  spontaneity.  Even  if  it  is  an  immanent 
purpose,  an  abiding  resolve  to  do  something,  still,  in  itself  and 
aside  from  the  choice  which  it  expresses,  it  is  merely  a  person’s 
determining  to  perform  an  action  or  a  series  of  actions,  not  the 
choice  of  the  object  sought  in  the  action  nor  of  the  person  for 
whom  he  seeks  it.  If  volitional  acts  as  distinguished  from  choice 
are  all  that  the  moral  law  requires,  it  would  demand  only  a  per¬ 
functory  obedience  to  the  categoric  command  of  law  in  isolated 
acts.  Such  a  determination  would  strike  none  of  the  deeper 
springs  of  human  action  ;  it  would  lack  both  spontaneity  and 
continuity ;  it  would  express  only  the  sense  of  obligation,  perhaps 
only  the  fear  of  punishment  constraining  to  duty ;  it  would  not 
constitute  character.  But  a  choice  is  a  preference  for  the  object 
chosen.  Even  a  subordinate  choice  of  something  to  be  acquired, 
possessed,  and  used  implies  a  preference  for  the  chosen  object, 
not  a  mere  arid  purpose  to  do  something.  It  manifests  itself  in 
willing  and  eager  effort  to  get  the  thing  chosen.  And  the 


78  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


supreme  choice  is  an  elective  preference  for  the  person  chosen 
and  issues  in  willing  and  earnest  trust  and  service.  If  there  were 
no  command  and  no  penalty  for  disobedience,  the  person  choos¬ 
ing  God  as  the  supreme  object  of  active  energy  spontaneously 
and  willingly  trusts  and  serves  him.  His  language  is  :  “  Lo  !  I 
come  ;  I  delight  to  do  thy  will,  O  God.”  It  is  always  a  pleasure 
to  render  service  to  one  we  love.  An  impenitent  sinner  chooses 
self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  and  delights  in 
every  service  he  can  render  to  himself.  And  when  one  chooses 
God  as  the  supreme  object,  there  are  an  analogous  spontaneity 
and  pleasure  in  his  service.  In  the  supreme  choice  a  person 
establishes  a  character  above  nature  and  controlling  and  direct¬ 
ing  nature  ;  a  spontaneity  united  with  freedom.  Then  he  follows 
the  bent  of  his  character  as  spontaneously  as  he  follows  the  bent 
of  his  nature.  His  character  may  at  first  be  in  conflict  with 
propensities  of  nature  disordered  by  sin.  But  as  it  becomes  fully 
developed,  all  the  impulses  of  nature  are  trained  and  directed 
into  harmony  with  it,  and  his  trust  and  service  are  rendered 
without  consciousness  of  constraint  or  restraint.  The  fear  of 
penalty  and  the  constraining  sense  of  duty  and  obligation  dis¬ 
appear  from  his  consciousness,  lost  in  the  earnestness  and  joy  of 
his  choice  of  God,  as  the  starlight  is,  not  extinguished,  but  ab¬ 
sorbed  and  lost  to  sight  in  the  full  light  of  the  sun.  His  char¬ 
acter,  thus  developed,  has  become  second  nature  ;  the  law  has 
become  written  on  his  heart ;  he  willingly  and  joyously  follows 
his  ruling  choice,  conscious  only  that  he  is  acting  according  to  his 
own  strongest  preference. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  these  four  essential  elements  of 
moral  character,  freedom,  continuity,  unity,  and  spontaneity,  are 
found  in  the  choice  of  a  person  or  persons  as  the  supreme  object 
of  trust  and  service,  and  in  no  other  mental  act  or  state  of  a  per¬ 
sonal  being.  The  conclusion  is  inevitable  that  this  and  this  alone 
is  moral  character  in  its  primary  significance. 

3.  The  love  required  in  the  law  is  itself  a  choice.  It  is  the 
choice  of  God  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  and 
of  our  neighbor  as,  in  our  common  relation  to  God,  equally  with 
ourselves  the  object  of  trust  and  service.  The  choice  is  itself  the 
love.  This  choice  of  God  and  of  our  neighbor  as  ourselves  cer¬ 
tainly  implies  the  devotement  of  all  the  energies  to  them  in  trust 
and  service.  It,  therefore,  carries  in  it  the  trustfulness  and  self- 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  79 


devotement  characteristic  of  the  love  required  in  the  law  and  of 
all  true  love.  We  have  seen  that  the  supreme  choice  carries  in  it 
all  the  distinctive  qualities  of  character  in  its  primary  meaning  as 
psychologically  defined.  We  are  now  to  see  that,  as  the  supreme 
choice  of  God  and  of  our  neighbor  as  ourselves,  it  is  itself  the 
confiding  and  self-devoting  love  required  in  the  law,  and  takes  up 
all  the  essential  characteristics  of  a  right  character  as  ethically 
defined. 

Because  the  love  is  required  by  the  moral  law,  it  cannot  consist 
of  mere  knowledge  or  feeling,  for  they  are  not  under  the  imme¬ 
diate  control  of  the  will  and  cannot  constitute  character  in  its 
primary  sense.  It  must,  therefore,  be  referred  to  the  will.  But 
love,  as  moral  character,  cannot  be,  a  mere  volition.  It  must, 
therefore  be  a  choice  or  elective  preference.  The  word  “  love  ”  is 
used  with  a  great  variety  of  applications.  One  is  said  to  love  an 
apple,  his  children,  popularity,  money,  and  many  other  things. 
Setting  aside  these,  which  are  mere  affections,  desires,  or  even 
appetites  of  nature,  and  discriminating  from  them  the  love  re¬ 
quired  of  rational  persons  as  the  essence  of  moral  character  by 
the  law  of  God,  we  see  that,  defined  psychologically,  it  is  a  free 
choice  of  a  person  or  persons  as  the  object  of  trust  and  service. 
It  is  also  to  be  noticed  that  this  love  is  required  by  the  law  as  the 
essence  of  all  right  moral  character,  as  the  supreme  and  dominant 
principle  of  all  right  action.  “  On  these  two  commandments,” 
love  to  God  as  supreme  and  to  our  neighbor  as  ourselves,  “  hang 
all  the  law  and  the  prophets.”  “  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the 
law.”  Love,  therefore,  is  the  supreme  choice  which  is  moral 
character  in  its  primary  sense,  and  which  finds  expression  in  all 
actions  and  gives  to  them  moral  character.  It  is  a  fundamental 
error  of  some  writers  on  ethics  that  they  regard  love  as  one  of  the 
many  virtues,  instead  of  recognizing  it  as  itself  the  essence  of  all 
right  character,  which  manifests  itself  in  the  various  specific  vir¬ 
tues,  and  gives  them  their  character  as  virtues.  Love  is  universal 
good-will  regulated  in  its  exercise  by  wisdom  and  righteousness ; 
that  is,  in  accordance  with  the  principles  and  laws  of  Reason 
eternal  in  God,  for  the  realization  of  its  ideal  of  perfection  and 
well-being.  Because  the  universe  is  constituted  and  evolved  in 
accordance  with  these  principles  and  laws,  it  is  impossible  for 
love  to  realize  perfection  and  well-being  otherwise  than  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  them,  however  great  the  power  it  directs  and  controls. 


80  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


The  love  implies  good-will  to  all,  seeking  to  promote  perfection 
and  well-being.  In  what  the  perfection  and  well-being  consist 
must  be  determined  in  righteousness  ;  that  is,  in  accordance  with 
the  eternal  principles,  laws,  and  ideals  of  Reason.  And  in  what 
specific  acts  in  any  given  case  the  good-will  is  to  be  exercised, 
that  is,  what  acts  of  trust  and  service  are  in  any  case  due  to  the 
person  or  persons  who  are  the  objects  of  good-will,  must  be  deter¬ 
mined  by  the  best  judgment  of  the  person  exercising  the  good¬ 
will  in  view  of  all  the  facts  in  the  case  and  in  accordance  with  the 
same  eternal  principles,  laws,  and  ideals,  —  that  is,  in  righteous¬ 
ness.  In  both  of  these  ways,  the  good-will  implied  in  love  is 
exercised  in  righteousness.  In  recognizing  the  specific  virtues, 
we  simply  indicate  the  ways  in  which  it  is  right  for  a  person 
actuated  by  Christian  love  to  seek,  and  possible  for  him  to  attain 
any  real  perfection  and  well-being  either  for  himself,  or  for  other 
individuals,  or  for  mankind. 

The  doctrine  that  the  love  of  God  and  our  neighbor  is  a  choice 
of  the  will,  does  not  deny  the  existence  of  feeling  preceding,  ac¬ 
companying  and  following  it:  It  only  distinguishes  it  from  them. 
It  draws  a  sharply  defining  line  of  psychological  definition  between 
these  accessories  and  the  moral  choice  in  its  naked  essence.  This 
choice,  like  all  others,  is  preceded  by  motives,  impulses  from  the 
life  of  nature,  and  rational  motives,  scientific,  moral,  aesthetic, 
and  religious,  motives  of  prudence  and  of  the  sense  of  honor  and 
worthiness.  But  these  are  motives  only,  not  the  choice  or  deter¬ 
minations  of  the  will.  And  the  choice  of  God  as  the  supreme 
object  of  trust  and  service  brings  in  its  train  a  heavenly  host  of 
penitential  sorrows,  of  spiritual  aspirations,  hopes,  courage,  and 
joys.  In  the  popular  apprehension,  these  feelings  are  included  in 
the  love  and  even  regarded  as  the  essence  of  the  love.  Ask  a  person 
what  love  to  God  is,  and  as  likely  as  not  he  will  say  it  is  delight 
in  him.  But  delight  in  God  is  not  love ;  it  is  a  feeling  in  which 
love  is  manifested.  If  we  speak  with  exactness,  this  and  other 
emotions  of  the  new  spiritual  life  are  not  the  love,  but  conse¬ 
quents  and  manifestations  of  love.  In  fact,  these  feelings  are 
various  in  kind  ;  they  are  fluctuating  and  changeful ;  they  come 
and  go,  and,  therefore,  cannot  be  the  love  which  is  the  essence  of 
right  moral  character  in  its  continuity  and  unity.  If  from  love  we 
abstract  these  accessory  feelings,  commonly  included  in  it  in  the 
loose  popular  conception,  and  fix  our  attention  on  it  as  constituting 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  8 1 


the  very  gist  of  moral  character,  we  see  that  it  is  the  choice  of  God 
as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  and  of  our  neighbor  as 
equally  with  ourselves  an  object  of  trust  and  service  in  our  com¬ 
mon  relations  to  God.  In  fact,  popular  language  itself  implies, 
underlying  the  lack  of  exact  analysis,  a  real  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  love,  when  thought  of  as  moral  character,  is  regarded  as, 
in  its  inmost  essence,  a  choice  of  the  will.  Why  else  are  love  and 
its  contrary  so  commonly  designated  as  good -will,  and  ill -will,  as 
b Q\\Q-vole?ice  and  mal Q-volence  ? 

This  choice  has  also  all  the  essential  elements  of  love  in  its  true 
significance.  It  is  the  positive  essence  of  love,  that  which  consti¬ 
tutes  it  love  and  by  which  it  is  distinguished  as  love  from  every 
other  mental  act  and  character.  Certainly,  one’s  choice  of  a 
person  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  must  be  love. 
The  person  whom  one  thus  chooses,  to  whom  he  freely  trusts  his 
interests  and  himself  and  whom  he  willingly  and  by  preference 
serves,  must  be  the  person  whom  he  loves  supremely.  If  the  per¬ 
son  whom  he  chooses  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  is 
other  than  himself,  then  the  choice  is  in  itself  his  renunciation  of 
himself  as  his  supreme  object,  and  is  the  self-renunciation,  self- 
sacrifice,  self-devotement,  which  is  the  essential  characteristic  of  all 
true  love.  If  this  conception  of  love  is  lost,  then  love  sinks  into  a 
natural  desire  or  affection,  a  longing  for  something  to  be  acquired, 
possessed,  and  used.  Love  to  a  person  becomes  no  other  than 
“  a  desire  to  have  the  person  present,  to  possess  and  to  enjoy 
him.”  1  The  person  is  not  loved,  is  not  chosen  as  the  object  of 
trust  and  service,  but  is  only  desired  as  needed  by  the  lover  for 
his  own  use  and  enjoyment.  It  becomes  only  a  form  of  self-love. 
Thus  the  essential  significance  of  love  as  manifesting  itself  in  trust¬ 
ing  and  serving  the  person  loved  is  forgotten,  and  the  Greek  epco? 
takes  the  place  of  dyairq  in  its  Christian  significance.  Then  a 
person’s  love  to  God  becomes  the  person’s  own  selfish  desire  to 
have  God  on  his  side  to  use  his  almightiness,  wisdom,  and  love  in 
saving  him  from  hell  and  making  him  blessed  forever.  It  is  the 
desire  to  use  God  in  the  service  of  self.  And  not  only  is  choice 
itself,  as  expressed  in  trust  and  service,  the  positive  essence  of 
love,  but  it  has  also,  as  we  have  seen,  the  characteristics  of  con¬ 
tinuity,  unity,  and  spontaneity,  and  in  addition  the  element  of 
moral  freedom  which  the  natural  affections  have  not. 

1  H.  P.  Tappan’s  definition  in  “  Review  of  Edwards  on  the  Will,”  p.  18. 

VOL.  II.  — 6 


82 


THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


In  the  life  of  the  spirit,  love  to  a  person  is  the  free  choice  or 
elective  preference  of  the  person  as  the  object  of  trust  and  ser¬ 
vice.  In  the  sphere  of  the  natural  or  animal  life  love  is  an 
instinctive  impulse,  desire,  or  affection.  It  cannot  rise  higher, 
because  it  cannot  transcend  the  sphere  of  nature  in  which  it 
belongs.  But  a  man,  though  implicated  in  nature,  is  also  a 
rational  person ;  therein  he  transcends  nature  and  is  super¬ 
natural.  Love,  as  exercised  by  a  person  towards  a  person  rational 
and  free  like  himself,  rises  above  the  sphere  of  nature  and  its 
instincts  and  is  a  free  choice  or  elective  preference.  It  rises  even 
to  God  and  may  choose  him  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and 
service  ;  or  the  person  may  choose  himself  as  supreme  object 
of  all  his  energies,  and  therein  refuse  and  reject  God.  And  a 
person  is  rightfully  the  object  of  trust  and  service ;  he  is  never  to 
be  acquired,  possessed,  and  used.  In  declaring  that  the  love 
required  in  the  law  is  a  free  choice,  we  only  recognize  the  fact 
that  man  is  a  personal  spirit  transcending  nature,  and  that  love 
exercised  by  a  person  to  a  person  must  rise  above  the  sphere  of 
the  life  of  nature  and  all  its  instincts,  and  above  the  sphere  of 
objects  to  be  acquired,  possessed,  and  used,  to  the  sphere  of  the 
spiritual  system,  to  persons  to  be  trusted  and  served.  And  here 
is  exposed  the  error  of  those  who  hold  that  love  is  an  affection,  — 
that  is,  a  feeling,  not  a  choice  of  the  will,  —  and  therefore  argue 
that  if  the  love  required  in  the  law  is  a  choice,  then  compassion, 
lust,  parental  and  filial  affection,  all  instinctive  desire,  must  also  be 
choices.  It  exposes  the  fact  that  their  theory,  that  love  is  only 
an  affection,  allows  no  distinction  between  instinctive  impulse  and 
moral  character,  and  logically  debases  the  spiritual  in  man  into 
the  natural,  and  so  identifies  the  spiritual  with  the  natural.  A 
clear  recognition  of  the  distinction  of  the  natural  from  the  spir¬ 
itual  in  man  requires  the  corresponding  distinction  between  the 
love  which  springs  instinctively  from  the  nature,  though  beautiful 
as  a  mother’s  love,  and  the  love  which  is  exercised  by  the  human 
spirit  towards  God  and  man. 

4.  The  theological  doctrine  that  the  love  required  in  the  law  is 
an  affection,  and  not  a  choice,  is  erroneous  as  a  doctrine  and  dan¬ 
gerous  in  its  practical  tendency.  It  is  the  doctrine  that  moral 
and  religious  character  is  primarily  feeling,  and  thus  is  refuted  by 
all  the  arguments  against  that  doctrine  already  presented.  It 
gives  no  psychological  basis  for  distinguishing  moral  character 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  83 


from  what  is  born  in  us  as  nature  or  constitution ;  nor  for  distin¬ 
guishing  the  love,  which  is  commanded  by  the  law  as  a  duty  and 
is  itself  moral  character  in  its  primary  meaning,  from  the  instinc¬ 
tive  affections  common  to  man  and  the  brutes.  It  marks  no 
psychological  distinction  of  man’s  love  to  God  or  God’s  love  to 
man  from  a  cow’s  love  to  her  calf  or  a  dog’s  love  to  its  master. 
This  doctrine  has  been  widely  prevalent  from  very  early  times. 
It  has  been  recently  presented  in  its  least  exceptionable  form  by 
Canon  Barry  in  a  lecture  on  ‘‘The  Theology  of  the  Affections.”  1 
Love,  he  says,  as  realized  in  a  Christian  life  is  an  affection  for 
persons  only,  primarily  for  God.  “  Modern  thought,  probably 
under  the  guidance  of  Christianity,  has  certainly  outgrown  the  old 
pagan  notion  of  love  as  a  merely  instinctive  and  irrational  force  in 
man.”  “  It  begins  in  mere  instinct ;  and  this  instinct  is  plainly 
akin  to  the  instinct  of  brute  creatures,  and  may  assert  itself  with¬ 
out  any  relation,  or  even  in  antagonism,  to  the  dictates  of  reason 
and  conscience  .  .  .  But  while  these  things  are  true,  it  is  equally 
true  that  love  is  capable  of  being  so  impregnated  by  reason,  as  to 
assume  the  form  of  a  settled  rational  principle  in  the  soul,  and  to 
prove  itself  one  of  the  strongest  and  most  continuous  of  the  forces 
which  rule  society.  ...  It  may  begin  in  the  instinct  of  natural 
and  social  affections,  but  is  capable  of  rising,  as  it  does  rise  every 
day,  into  a  lofty  rational  principle.”  But  the  very  supposition 
that  an  instinctive  affection,  akin  to  those  of  the  brutes,  can  itself 
be  elevated  into  rational  principle,  confounds  all  psychological 
distinctions,  and  obscures,  if  it  does  not  even  obliterate,  the  distinc¬ 
tion  between  spirit  and  nature,  between  a  rational  free  person  and 
a  brute.  If  we  are  to  preserve  this  essential  distinction,  without 
which  both  morals  and  religion  would  be  impossible,  moral  and 
religious  character  cannot  be  primarily  in  the  instinctive  affections 
of  nature,  but  only  in  the  qualities,  powers,  and  activity  distinc¬ 
tive  of  man  in  the  likeness  of  God  as  rational,  free,  personal 
spirit.  It  must  be,  therefore,  in  its  primary  and  essential  meaning, 
the  choice  by  a  rational  free  person  of  the  person  or  persons  who 
shall  be  the  supreme  object  of  all  the  energies  in  trust  and  service. 
An  instinctive  affection  of  nature,  however  developed,  can  never 
transcend  its  own  essential  nature ;  it  must  always  remain  a 
natural  or  instinctive  affection.  It  is  only  as  determined  and 
regulated  by  the  will  that  the  man  has  in  its  exercise  moral  char- 

1  “  Natural  Theology,”  The  Boyle  Lectures,  1876,  chap.  viii.  pp.  272-306. 


84  the  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


acter;  and  this  is  therefore  character  only  in  its  secondary  sense. 
Accordingly  this  writer,  in  describing  the  rise  of  the  natural  affec¬ 
tion  of  love  into  a  rational  principle,  fails  in  the  attempt,  and  is 
continually  falling  back  into  the  original  conception  of  a  natural 
and  instinctive  affection.  He  sees  that  Christian  love  is  more 
and  other  than  natural  affection,  but  his  inadequate  psychological 
theory  that  love  is  an  affection  or  feeling,  and  therefore  denying 
that  moral  character  is  primarily  choice,  makes  it  impossible  for 
him  either  to  define  clearly  or  to  hold  steadfastly  the  significance 
of  Christian  love  as  transcending  all  instinctive  natural  affections. 
Thus  he  identifies  love  with  sympathy ;  declares  that  “  love  can¬ 
not  endure  without  reciprocity  ;  ”  it  can  go  forth  only  in  response 
to  love;  in  the  object  of  one’s  love  there  must  be  “a  true  like¬ 
ness  of  nature  shown  by  the  pursuit  of  common  objects,  the  belief 
in  common  truths,  the  love  of  common  principles.”  “  Where  no 
sympathy  is,  love  cannot  last.  After  vain  and  often  pathetic 
attempts  to  imagine  sympathy,  it  will  sink  into  despairing  indif¬ 
ference  or  perhaps  turn  into  contempt  and  hatred.”  The  neces¬ 
sary  inference  is  that  love  is  limited  to  the  feeling  of  complacency, 
that  a  righteous  man  cannot  love  the  unrighteous ;  that  God  him¬ 
self  cannot  love  sinners,  who  do  not  reciprocate  his  love  and  are 
at  all  points  morally  and  spiritually  in  antagonism  to  him.  We 
almost  hear  again  the  terrific  words  of  Edwards  in  his  famous 
sermon  entitled  “Sinners  in  the  Hand  of  an  Angry  God,”  and  his 
strong  assertions  that  God  “  hates  ”  them  and  has  them  “  in  the 
utmost  contempt.”  But  God’s  fullest  revelation  of  his  love  is  his 
love  to  sinners,  as  he  comes  into  humanity  in  Christ  and  abides 
among  men  in  the  Holy  Spirit  seeking  them  in  their  sin  to  save 
them  from  it  (John  iii.  16;  Rom.  v.  7,  8).  And  the  highest 
manifestation  of  Christian  love  by  men  is  in  the  self-sacrificing 
love  of  Christians  to  sinners  to  save  them  from  sin  and  reconcile 
the  world  to  God.  Complacency  and  displacency  are  feelings  in¬ 
cidental  to  Christian  love,  because  it  is  supreme  love  to  God  and 
is  regulated  in  its  exercise  in  conformity  with  God’s  eternal  truth 
and  law.  But  love,  as  the  determination  of  the  energies  by  the 
free  choice  of  the  will  to  persons  as  the  objects  of  trust  and  ser¬ 
vice,  and  so  to  the  development  and  extension  of  the  kingdom  of 
God,  may  co-exist  with  either  complacency  or  displacency  toward 
the  person  served.  The  more  repulsive  the  character  of  the  per¬ 
son  served  the  greater  the  self-sacrificing  love  that  seeks  to  serve 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  85 


and  save  him.  The  psychological  definition  of  the  love  required 
in  God’s  law  as  self-determination  in  free  choice  is  the  only  defini¬ 
tion  consistent  with  the  possibility  of  love  to  sinners  co-existing  with 
displacency  toward  them.  Another  inference  must  be  that  love, 
as  identical  with  sympathy,  and  demanding  reciprocity,  cannot 
have  “  any  reference  to  the  little  world  within ;  ”  that  is,  self  can¬ 
not  be  the  object  of  love  ;  and  this,  notwithstanding  the  law 
explicitly  commands  the  love  of  self  on  equality  with  love  of  the 
neighbor.  Hence  this  author  also  finds  himself  obliged  to  treat 
love  as  not  commanded  by  the  law,  and  to  put  it  into  antithesis, 
and  even  into  antagonism,  to  duty  and  righteousness.  “  Love 
cannot  be  fostered  by  law.”  This  conception  of  love  as  an  affec¬ 
tion,  and  not  a  choice,  has  been  a  source  of  false  conceptions  of 
the  law,  and  of  the  antagonism  of  justice  and  love  and  of  law  and 
grace,  which  have  been  widely  current  in  the  churches.  But  the 
law  requires  love,  and  therein  reveals  and  declares  that  God  is 
love  as  really  as  does  his  redemptive  action  in  Christ ;  and  God’s 
grace  in  Christ  is  the  revelation  of  God’s  law  of  love,  and  of  his 
earnestness  in  bringing  men  into  harmony  with  it  in  love,  as  really 
as  the  law  itself;  and  love  is  the  one  all-comprehending  duty  re¬ 
quired  in  the  law.  And  from  identifying  love  with  natural  affec¬ 
tion  he  comes  to  the  surprising  conclusion  that  “  the  extension 
of  the  area  of  affection  simply  dilutes  its  power.”  How  greatly 
diluted,  then,  must  be  the  universal  love  required  in  God’s  law  ! 
The  author  even  speaks  of  love  as  “  perhaps  the  best  means  of 
softening,  purifying,  and  ennobling  the  moral  nature  of  man  ”  ; 
apparently  forgetting  that,  as  Christ  presents  it,  the  command  to 
love  God  and  our  neighbor  is  not  a  means  nor  a  single  statute 
among  many,  but  it  is  the  law  in  its  universal  principle  on  which 
all  particular  commands  and  duties  depend.  Thus,  in  his  attempt 
to  elevate  a  natural  affection  into  the  love  which  the  law  requires 
as  the  essence  of  all  moral  character,  the  love  is  continually  laps¬ 
ing  from  the  form  of  “  a  settled  ratior.  •  1  principle  in  the  soul,” 
which  he  would  have  it  assume,  and  revealing  itself  in  its  original 
and  unchanged  essence  as  a  natural  affection.  The  author  clearly 
sees  and  labors  to  prove  that  Christian  love  must  be  action  and 
character  in  accordance  with  reason.  He  says,  “  The  power  of 
love  is  in  itself  a  spiritual  and  moral  power.”  But  his  psychologi¬ 
cal  conception  of  it  as  an  instinctive  affection  developed,  at  every 
step  vitiates  his  argument  and  destroys  its  force. 


86  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


Thus  this  lecture  on  “The  Theology  of  the  Affections  ”  exem¬ 
plifies  the  insuperable  difficulties  and  the  unavoidable  ambiguity 
inseparable  from  the  development  and  application  of  the  common 
doctrine  that  the  love  required  in  the  law  and  revealed  in  Christ 
is  an  affection  of  the  feelings  and  not  a  rational  free  choice  of 
the  will ;  they  are  difficulties  and  ambiguity  inherent  in  the  false 
psychology  underlying  the  doctrine  and  not  to  be  escaped  by  the 
ablest  treatment  of  the  subject.  And  in  its  practical  tendency 
this  error  is  a  bar  to  preaching  man’s  duty  to  love  God  so  as  to 
make  him  feel  his  guilt  for  his  spiritual  insensibility  and  lack  of 
love  to  God,  and  his  obligation  at  once  to  turn  to  God  in  repent¬ 
ance  for  sin  and  love  to  God  and  man. 

The  advocates  of  the  doctrine  that  moral  character  in  its  pri¬ 
mary  meaning  is  an  affection,  not  a  choice,  commonly  regard  the 
exertive  or  executive  volition  as  the  only  function  of  the  will. 
Then,  because  they  must  see  that  character  in  its  continuity,  unity, 
and  spontaneity,  must  be  something  deeper  than  these  volitions, 
they  are  obliged  to  exclude  it  from  the  will  altogether ;  and  they 
assert  that  it  is  an  affection  of  the  feelings.  From  this  point  of 
view,  it  is  evident,  that,  in  addition  to  the  difficulties  already 
pointed  out,  this  doctrine  is  incompatible  with  free  will,  and 
logically  issues  in  the  doctrine  of  necessity  in  the  form  known  as 
determinism  :  that  the  determinations  of  the  will  are  not  caused 
by  the  person  himself  in  the  exercise  of  his  free  will,  but  by  the 
motive  or  impulse  which  at  the  time  is  strongest.  A  volition  is 
not  in  itself  a  complete  determination.  In  it  the  person  does 
not  determine  the  object  and  direction  of  his  energies,  but  only 
exerts  them  in  the  direction  of  the  object  already  determined. 
But  the  supposition  here  in  question  is  that  the  object  to  which 
the  energies  are  to  be  directed  is  determined,  not  by  the  person 
himself  in  his  own  free  choice,  but  by  his  feelings,  by  natural  or 
constitutional  affections  back  of  the  will  and  independent  of  it. 
Thus  the  ends  to  which  a  person  directs  his  energies  are  deter¬ 
mined  not  by  him  in  his  own  free  choice,  but  for  him  in  his 
nature  or  constitution.  The  doctrine  in  words  allows  the  man 
the  power  of  volition.  But  in  fact  it  implies  that  the  man  does 
not  determine  even  his  volitions,  but  that  they  are  determined 
by  the  motive  or  impulse  of  nature  which  at  the  moment  is  the 
strongest.  Thus  the  doctrine  necessarily  lapses  from  the  con¬ 
ception  of  a  man  as  a  rational  free  spirit  in  the  likeness  of  God, 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  8/ 


to  the  conception  of  man  as  necessarily  driven  by  the  impulses  of 
nature  in  the  likeness  of  the  brutes.  His  only  freedom  is  physi¬ 
cal  freedom,  the  freedom  from  external  constraints  and  restraints, 
a  freedom  possessed  by  every  brute  which  runs  at  large  as  really 
as  by  man,  and  regarded  by  materialistic,  pantheistic,  and  agnostic 
deniers  of  free  will  as  the  only  freedom  predicable  of  man. 

Equally  necessary  would  be  the  inference  that  the  will  of  God 
is  not  free.  Elis  love  would  be  a  mere  feeling  of  complacency,  a 
natural  affection.  He  would  no  longer  be  the  absolute  Reason 
energizing  in  free  will.  He  becomes  a  great  Nature  (Gross 
Natur),  acting  under  necessity  for  the  satisfaction  of  wants. 
Thus  the  necessary  logical  inference  from  the  doctrine  is  that 
necessity  pervades  the  universe  and  there  can  be  no  free  will 
either  in  God  or  in  any  finite  being. 

While  those,  who  have  held  this  psychological  definition  of  char¬ 
acter  as  an  affection  of  the  feelings  and  not  a  determination  of 
the  will,  have  not  accepted  all  the  inferences  logically  deduced 
from  it,  it  has  been  the  psychological  basis  for  widely-accepted 
and  baneful  erroneous  doctrines. 

Some  German  theologians  have  held  that  God  must  be  the 
cause  of  himself;  whatever  he  is,  he  must  have  made  himself 
such  ;  otherwise  his  essence  or  constitution  would  be  something 
given  him  or  imposed  on  him  and  would  limit  and  condition  him. 
Thus  they  fall  into  pantheistic  lines  of  thought,  —  that  God  must 
be  pure  action  (actus  purus)  ;  that,  in  the  Absolute,  being  is  the 
same  as  nothing;  the  absolute  becomes  the  “ abyss  ”  of  nothing¬ 
ness.  This  objection  has  already  been  considered  ;  but  from  our 
present  point  of  view  we  may  give  an  additional  answer.  This 
refined  speculative  difficulty  must  arise  from  a  false  conception  of 
God’s  essence  or  constitution  as  a  mere  nature,  making  God  a 
Great  Nature  necessarily  unrolling  in  seeking  to  satisfy  wants. 
Such  a  nature  would  be  a  limitation  of  God  and  bring  him  under 
conditions.  But  no  reasonable  being  can  think  of  God  as  limited 
and  conditioned  by  being  the  absolute  Spirit,  eternal  Reason 
energizing  freely  with  almighty  power ;  for  thus  we  ascribe  to 
him,  not  the  limitations  of  a  nature,  but  the  perfections  of  Spirit 
wherein  he  is  above  nature.  These  are  the  essence  of  God,  with¬ 
out  which  the  absolute  would  have  no  positive  contents,  but  would 
be  mere  action  without  an  agent,  an  adjective  without  a  noun,  a 
being  identical  with  nothing.  The  assertion  that  God  creates 


88  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


himself,  conveys  no  intelligible  meaning.  The  absolute  Being  is 
not  an  effect.  But  God  as  absolute  Reason  and  Will  is  essentially 
active.  He  eternally  knows  the  archetype  of  all  truth,  right, 
perfection,  and  good  within  himself ;  he  is  progressively  realizing 
it  in  the  universe  ;  and  his  love  is  his  eternal  choice  in  harmony 
with  his  eternal  reason  to  realize  in  the  universe,  and  pre-em¬ 
inently  in  the  moral  system,  all  that  is  true,  right,  perfect,  and 
good,  so  far  as  possible  in  a  finite  universe  and  a  moral  system  of 
finite  free  and  rational  persons.  Thus  in  his  eternal  free  choice 
he  eternally  creates  his  own  character  and  by  his  own  eternal  free 
choice  determines  what  he  is  as  the  God  who  is  Love.  There¬ 
fore  if  we  regard  God  as  Spirit  and  not  as  nature,  and  his  love  as 
his  eternal  free  choice,  the  difficulty  is  removed  and  the  only  true 
sense,  in  which  God  causes  himself  to  be  what  he  is,  becomes 
evident. 

The  same  erroneous  psychological  conception  of  character  as 
an  affection  is  the  basis  on  which  rests  the  doctrine  of  Thomas 
Aquinas  that  God  infuses  habits  and  character  into  the  soul,  —  a 
doctrine  which  in  various  forms  has  been  widely  prevalent.  He 
effects  in  men  holy  dispositions  without  their  action ;  he  infuses 
into  men  the  theological  virtues,  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  and  the 
seven  spiritual  gifts,  wisdom,  understanding,  knowledge,  counsel, 
fortitude,  fear,  and  the  moral  virtues.  He  argues  that  as  God  can 
impart  a  holy  disposition  to  a  person  at  birth,  so  he  may  also  in 
conversion  and  in  any  emergency  of  temptation.  But  it  is 
because  he  regards  a  holy  disposition  as  an  affection  and  there¬ 
fore  not  psychologically  distinguishable  from  the  natural  disposi¬ 
tion  born  in  a  man,  that  he  can  speak  of  a  natural  disposition  as 
holy  or  argue  from  it  that  a  new  character  may  be  infused  into  a 
man  in  conversion.  He  argues  that  God  can  infuse  right  char¬ 
acter  into  a  man  without  the  man’s  action,  because  God  “  can 
produce  the  effects  of  second  causes  without  the  second  causes 
themselves.” 1  This  argument  also  derives  its  force  from  the 
assumption  that  the  love  to  God  required  in  the  law  is  a  natural 
affection  not  distinguishable  from  the  nature  which  is  born  in  us. 
It  does  not  follow  that  God  can  cause  a  choice  of  a  free  agent 
without  the  action  of  the  agent,  —  for  this  would  be  absurd. 

The  same  psychological  error  gives  a  basis  for  the  doctrine  that 
God  regenerates  a  sinner  by  an  act  of  almighty  power,  without 

1  Summa  Theologiae,  pars  prima  secundae,  Q.  52,  A.  4a. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  89 


which  man  is  impotent  to  accept  the  offers  of  the  gospel  and  re¬ 
turn  to  God  in  penitential  and  loving  trust.  This  has  led  theologians 
to  conceive  of  the  grace  of  God  itself  as  almighty  power  and  to 
call  it  irresistible.  1  So  Canon  Mozley  says  :  “  The  question  of 
divine  grace  is  a  question  of  divine  power.  Grace  is  power. 
That  power  whereby  God  works  in  nature  is  called  power. 
That  power  whereby  he  works  in  the  wills  of  his  reasonable 
creatures  is  called  grace.”  He  also  alludes  to  the  doctrine  of 
Aristotle  that  habit  and  character  are  formed  by  action,  and  de¬ 
clares  that  the  medieval  doctrine  of  the  infusion  of  habits  by 
divine  power  “  was  an  important  modification  of  the  Aristotelian 
doctrine,  which  rested  too  exclusively  on  acts  as  the  cause  of 
habits.  .  .  .  The  idea  of  the  divine  power,  which  was  not  fully 
embraced  by  the  pagan  philosopher,  was  brought  out  by  the  true 
religion,  and  applied  to  the  moral  as  well  as  to  the  physical  world, 
to  the  department  of  the  will  as  well  as  to  that  of  matter.”  2 

Another  error  which  finds  a  psychological  basis  in  this  con¬ 
ception  of  moral  character  as  primarily  an  affection  is  the  doctrine 
that  a  man  is  born  a  sinner  and  guilty  of  Adam’s  sin.  The 
doctrine  that  character  is  primarily  a  choice  is  consistent  with  the 
facts  of  the  generic  unity  of  mankind  and  the  powerful  and  evil 
influence  on  the  individual  from  his  connection  with  the  race. 
But  it  does  not  permit  the  belief  that  a  man  is  a  sinner  before  he 
has  sinned. 

Ethics,  not  less  than  theology,  has  been  vitiated  by  indefinite¬ 
ness  of  thought  and  positive  errors  arising  from  the  lack  of  exact 
and  correct  psychological  definitions.  These  are  essential  to  any 
right  and  definite  conception  of  moral  responsibility,  action,  and 
character,  and  of  the  exact  bounds  of  the  sphere  of  ethical  science. 
Through  neglecting  these  definitions,  or  accepting  incorrect  ones, 
ethical  writers  have  often  not  clearly  perceived  the  bounds  of 
their  science  and  the  matter  of  which  it  distinctively  treats, 

1  “  In  his  battle  with  Erasmus,  Luther  affirmed  in  almost  reckless  lan¬ 
guage  the  impotence  of  the  human  will.  God’s  agency  was  asserted  to  be 
the  universal  cause.  His  will  was  declared  to  be  subject  to  no  law,  but  to 
be  the  foundation  of  right.  Predestination  was  declared  to  be  uncondi¬ 
tional  and  to  include  as  its  objects  the  lost  as  well  as  the  saved.  ‘  By 
this  thunderbolt,’  he  said,  ‘  free  will  is  laid  low  and  thoroughly  crushed.’  ” 
Prof.  George  P.  Fisher,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  “  History  of  Christian  Doctrine,”  pp. 
292,  293. 

2  The  Augustinian  Doctrine  of  Predestination,  pp.  302,  274. 


go  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


excluding  what  does  belong  to  it  and  including  what  does  not. 
Some,  for  example,  recognize  the  will  as  the  power  of  volition  only, 
and  therefore  limit  moral  character  to  isolated  duties  done  in  obed¬ 
ience  to  rules  regarded  as  categoric  imperatives ;  thus  duty  and 
obedience  to  law  are  brought  into  antagonism  to  love.  Others, 
seeking  an  ethics  less  arid  and  giving  room  for  the  continuity, 
unity,  and  spontaneity  of  character,  regard  the  moral  character  as 
consisting  in  love,  but  treat  the  love  as  itself  identical  with  a 
natural  disposition  or  affection,  and  so  as  one  among  many  of 
these  affections.  Thus  by  their  neglect  of  accurate  psychological 
distinctions  they  place  moral  character  outside  the  range  of  vol¬ 
untary  determination  and  moral  responsibility  and  thrust  it  from 
the  legitimate  sphere  of  ethical  science.  And  as  a  necessary  con¬ 
sequence  they  make  it  impossible  to  harmonize  their  ethics  with 
the  law  of  Christ,  which  enjoins  love,  not  as  one  affection  among 
many,  but  as  itself  the  right  moral  character  in  its  primary  mean¬ 
ing,  inspiring,  determining,  and  characterizing  moral  action  in  all 
its  ramifications.  For  the  same  reason,  while  there  is  agreement 
that  man  is  a  free,  responsible  moral  agent  and  bound  under 
obligation  to  obey  the  universal  law  of  love,  there  is  not  agree¬ 
ment  among  ethical  schools  of  different  types  in  the  psychological 
definition  of  what  free  will  essentially  is,  of  what  constitutes  a 
person  morally  responsible,  and  what  are  the  exact  boundaries  of 
responsible  moral  action  ;  of  what  the  love  is  which  the  law  re¬ 
quires,  and  what  are  the  essentials  of  moral  character.  Some 
regard  the  will  as  only  power  acting  in  caprice.  Others  rightly 
hold  that  man’s  free  will  is  his  power,  in  the  light  of  reason  and 
susceptible  of  the  influence  of  rational  motives,  to  determine  both 
the  objects  to  which  he  will  direct  his  energies  and  the  exertion 
of  the  energies  thus  directed ;  thus  its  determinations  are  both 
directive  and  exertive.  And  then  the  deniers  and  critics  of  this 
type  of  ethics  misconceive  it  as  implying  that  the  reason  itself  is 
man’s  only  power  of  determination,  and,  because  reason  in  its 
distinctive  function  can  only  think,  know,  and  discriminate,  but 
cannot  determine,  exert,  or  direct  man’s  causal  energy,  therefore 
this  type  of  ethics  excludes  all  real  free  will  whatsoever.  Under 
this  misconception  of  the  doctrine  Martineau  presents  as  con¬ 
clusive  against  this  type  of  ethics  an  argument  totally  irrelevant. 
“  Were  moral  ideas  resolvable  into  rational,  right  would  be  a  kind 
of  truth  and  virtue  would  be  constituted  by  assent.  .  .  .  The 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  9 1 


sense  of  duty  could  never  belong  to  a  mere  thinking  being. 
.  .  .  Truth  necessitates  assent.  Duty  does  not  necessitate 
obedience.”  1 

Moral  action  is  also  presented,  not  merely  as  obeying  a  rule  or 
categoric  imperative,  but  as  directed  to  an  end.  Then  action,  in 
the  methods  best  adapted  to  attain  the  end,  becomes  obligatory. 
An  obligation  of  this  sort  Kant  calls  an  hypothetical  imperative. 
But  the  end  itself  is  very  commonly  conceived  as  something  to  be 
got,  possessed,  and  used  ;  and  this  generalized  is  called  The  Good. 
Here,  again,  is  an  ethical  system  irreconcilable  with  the  law  of 
Christ.  For,  as  we  have  seen,  the  ultimate  end  or  object  to  which 
the  activity  of  trust  and  service  is  determined  or  directed  by  the 
choice,  and  on  which  it  must  ultimately  terminate,  is  always,  not 
something  to  be  acquired,  possessed,  and  used,  but  a  person  or 
persons  to  be  trusted  and  served.  And  Christ  declares  that  the 
object  of  love  required  in  the  law  is  not  wealth,  knowledge,  happi¬ 
ness,  good,  nor  anything  to  be  acquired,  possessed,  and  used,  but 
God  and  your  neighbor  and  yourself,  persons  to  be  trusted  and 
served. 

Differing  from  all  these,  Mr.  Sidgwick  has  given  to  the  public  a 
volume  on  the  “  Methods  of  Ethics  ”  in  which  he  declares  in  the 
outset  that  he  has  no  definite  opinion  as  to  what  a  free  will  is  and 
does  not  consider  an  answer  to  the  question  essential  to  ethical 
science.  “  I  cannot  therefore  accept  that  identification  of  free 
will  with  practical  reason  which  lays  the  transcendental  fact  of  free 
will  at  the  foundation  of  ethics.  Indeed  I  hold,  with  many 
English  moralists,  that  it  would  be  quite  possible  to  compose  a 
treatise  on  Ethics  which  should  completely  ignore  the  free  will 
controversy.  .  .  .  Although  it  seems  to  me  that  the  question  of 
the  freedom  of  the  will,  in  its  fundamental  and  general  aspect,  has 
no  bearing  upon  what  is  intrinsically  good  for  man,  or  ideally 
right  and  reasonable  in  human  conduct,  I  think  it  has  a  special 
and  limited  connection  with  ethics  which  it  is  highly  important  to 

consider . The  freedom  of  the  will  presents  itself  to  me  as 

an  unsolved  problem  ;  a  subject  on  which,  therefore,  I  am  obliged 
to  confess  that  I  have  really  no  knowledge,  because  I  have  no 
consistent  thought.  There  seems,  therefore,  to  be  no  general  con¬ 
nection  between  systematic  ethics  and  the  disputed  question  of  the 

1  Martineau,  “Types  of  Ethical  Theory,”  vol.  ii.  p.  421  ;  see  also  Sidg¬ 
wick,  “  Methods  of  Ethics,”  p.  45. 


92  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


freedom  of  the  will ;  a  question  standing  merely  in  a  special 

and  very  restricted  relation  to  systematic  morality.”  1 

But  the  definition  of  free  will  and  of  moral  character  which  I 
have  given,  presents  a  clear  conception  of  free  will  as  man’s 
power  of  self-determination,  both  directive  and  exertive,  essen¬ 
tial  in  his  constitution  as  rational,  personal  spirit  in  the  likeness  of 
God ;  and  a  clear  conception  of  moral  character  as  having  all  the 
elements  of  character  and  yet  within  the  range  of  moral  respon¬ 
sibility  and  free  will,  and  pervaded  through  and  through  with  free 
determination  and  constituted  character  by  it.  Thus  all  con¬ 
founding  of  moral  character  with  natural  affection,  disposition  or 
temperament  of  nature  is  precluded.  And  the  range  of  ethical 
science  is  exactly  defined  as  coincident  with  that  of  moral  re¬ 
sponsibility,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  with  the  range  of  the 
determination  of  the  will,  both  directive  and  exertive,  and  in¬ 
cluding  the  state  of  the  intellect  and  of  the  sensibilities  so  far  as 
formed  or  modified  by  the  action  of  the  will.  Also  the  distinc¬ 
tion  is  sharply  defined  between  persons  chosen  as  objects  of  trust 
and  service,  and  things,  qualities,  skill,  or  objects  of  any  kind 
chosen  as  objects  to  be  acquired,  possessed,  and  used.  And  it  is 
made  clear  that  the  choice  of  the  latter  must  always  be  subordi¬ 
nate  to  the  choice  of  the  person  for  whom  they  are  acquired  and 
by  whom  they  are  to  be  possessed  and  used.  And  it  is  evident 
that  the  choice  of  a  person  as  the  object  of  trust  and  service 
must  be  love  to  that  person  in  the  full  significance  of  the  word ; 
and  the  choice  of  God  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service 
must  be  the  love  with  all  the  heart  and  mind  and  strength  re¬ 
quired  in  the  law.  In  the  sphere  of  objects  to  be  got,  possessed 
and  used,  the  object  of  the  highest  choice  is  the  good.  It  is 
seeking  for  every  man  his  true  and  highest  well-being.  This 
consists  for  every  man  in  the  perfection  of  his  being,  his  conse¬ 
quent  harmony  with  himself,  with  his  fellow-men,  with  the  course 
of  the  universe,  and  with  God,  and  the  happiness  involved  therein. 
The  good  is  all  included  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  This  is  the 
sum  of  all  human  perfection  and  good  ;  and  its  advancement  and 
triumph  is  the  progressive  realization  of  the  true  well-being  of 
man. 

The  objection  has  been  urged  that  the  doctrine  that  the  love 
required  in  the  law  is  a  choice,  and  not  an  affection,  is  incompati- 

1  The  Methods  of  Ethics,  Bk.  i.,  chap.  v.  pp  45,  57. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  93 


ble  with  the  constitutional  religiousness  of  man.  The  answer  is 
that  the  doctrine  not  only  does  not  deny  man’s  constitutional 
religious  intuitions  and  susceptibility  to  religious  motives  and 
emotions  pertaining  to  his  idea  of  a  divinity,  but  it  affirms  that 
a  man  could  not  have  any  religious  character  if  constitutionally 
destitute  of  them.  There  would  be  in  him  no  susceptibility  to 
any  motives  to  religion  which  could  be  awakened  to  induce  him 
to  a  religious  life  nor  any  idea  of  a  God  which  would  make 
religion  intelligible  to  him.  He  would  be  constitutionally  as  in¬ 
capable  of  religion  as  is  any  brute.  The  relation  of  the  constitu¬ 
tional  religious  susceptibilities  to  character  is  analogous  to  that  of 
the  appetites,  of  all  instincts  and  propensities  of  nature,  of  all 
instinctive  desire  of  knowledge,  and  of  moral  motives  and  emo¬ 
tions.  The  character  for  which  a  man  is  responsible  is  not  in 
these,  but  in  man’s  voluntary  determination  of  his  action  and  the 
end  for  which  he  acts  in  these  several  spheres.  The  same  is  true 
in  the  sphere  of  religion.  Man’s  constitutional  instinctive  re¬ 
ligious  motives  and  emotions  exist  and  present  themselves  in 
consciousness.  His  character  for  which  he  is  responsible  con¬ 
sists  in  his  determination  of  his  energy  under  their  influence. 
The  argument  of  the  objector  is  merely  the  reassertion  of  the 
proposition  which  he  would  prove,  that  all  character  is  an  instinc¬ 
tive  affection,  and  that  man’s  will  is  determined  by  the  strongest 
motive,  not  by  himself  freely  in  the  light  of  reason.  Ulrici,  on 
the  contrary,  arguing  that  the  conscience  in  man  cannot  be  re¬ 
garded  as  the  voice  of  God,  says  that  free  will  is  impossible  if  a 
command  of  God  is  imprinted  clearly  and  fixedly  in  the  constitu¬ 
tion  of  man.1  But  man’s  constitutional  religiousness  is  merely 
his  constitutional  powers  and  capacities  which  make  him  capable 
of  knowing  God,  susceptible  to  the  influence  of  motives  to  trust 
and  serve  him,  and  capable  of  receiving  God’s  gracious  com¬ 
munications  and  influences.  At  the  same  time  the  man  is  free 
to  choose  or  refuse  God’s  offered  grace,  to  choose  God  or  him¬ 
self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service.  In  man’s  rational 
constitution  the  law  is  revealed  to  him  and  in  his  conscience  and 
moral  and  religious  susceptibilities  obedience  to  it  is  urged  upon 
him.  But  it  is  not  imprinted  on  his  heart  and  life  in  right  moral 
character  and  action  till  by  his  own  free  self-determination  he  makes 
it  the  law  of  his  life  and  consents  to  the  gracious  influence  of  the 

1  Gott  und  der  Mensch,  vol.  i.  pp.  693,  694. 


94  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


Spirit  of  God  ever  seeking  to  win  him  to  conformity  with  the  law 
in  the  life  of  love.  Thus  the  constitutional  capacities  are  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  the  character  which  the  man  forms  by  his  own 
free  determination  and  action.  So  the  moral  constitution  of  man, 
whereby  he  is  capable  of  moral  ideas  and  responsibility,  moral 
motives  and  emotions,  and  which  in  this  sense  may  be  said  to  be 
the  voice  of  God  declaring  his  law  in  the  man’s  consciousness,  is 
distinguished  from  his  own  free  action  in  obeying  or  disobeying 
it  and  the  character  which  he  thus  freely  forms.  It  is  an  argu¬ 
ment  for  the  doctrine  that  the  love  required  in  the  law  is  a  choice, 
that  it  sharply  defines  this  distinction  between  constitution  and 
moral  and  religious  character.  It  is  only  the  error  that  this  love 
is  an  affection  which  gives  plausibility  to  the  objection  that,  if 
man  is  constituted  a  moral  and  religious  being,  he  is  no  longer  a 
free  agent,  but  his  action  and  character  are  determined  for  him 
fixedly  in  his  nature  ;  or  to  the  converse  form  of  it,  that,  if  moral 
and  religious  character  is  primarily  a  choice,  man  must  be  desti¬ 
tute  of  a  moral  and  religious  constitution. 

It  may  be  supposed  by  some  that  the  close  connection  here 
assumed  between  religious  and  moral  character  is  an  unwarranted 
enlargement  of  the  sphere  of  ethics  by  including  religion  in  it  or 
by  identifying  religion  with  morals.  But  the  psychological  defi¬ 
nition  of  moral  character  which  has  been  given  seems  to  give  a 
clear  and  decisive  answer  to  the  vexed  question  as  to  the  relation 
of  religion  to  morals.  Religion,  as  the  general  name  of  man’s 
consciousness  of  relation  to  a  divinity  manifested  in  various  forms 
in  the  religions  of  the  world,  has  a  significance  extending  beyond 
the  distinctively  ethical.  But  if  ever  religion  in  its  lowest  de¬ 
velopment  existed  separate  from  morals,  it  is  certain  that  in  its 
normal  development  it  recognizes  its  relation  to  morals ;  and  that 
the  true  religion  taught  by  Christ  includes  moral  character.  The 
love  to  God  and  man,  in  which  religion  essentially  consists,  is  a 
free  choice.  As  such  it  is  moral  character,  involving  duties  both 
to  God  and  man.  Ethics,  therefore,  must  treat  of  duties  both  to 
God  and  man.  It  cannot  set  forth  man’s  duties  to  man  and  his 
moral  character  in  relation  to  man  in  their  true  significance,  ex¬ 
cept  as  it  recognizes  man  in  his  relation  to  God,  declares  his  duty 
to  trust  and  serve  God  in  supreme  love  and  thus  declares  his 
moral  character  involved  therein.  The  subject  matter  of  ethics 
must  be  Love,  as  the  authoritative  requirement  of  the  eternal 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  95 


and  universal  moral  law,  —  love  of  God  as  the  supreme  object  of 
trust  and  service,  and  of  our  neighbor  as,  equally  with  ourselves 
in  our  common  relations  to  God,  the  object  of  our  trust  and  ser¬ 
vice.  Only  thus  can  ethics  exhibit  the  essential  positive  prin¬ 
ciple  of  right  moral  character,  its  essential  freedom  throughout 
its  continuance,  though  it  should  continue  forever,  and  its  con¬ 
tinuity,  unity,  and  spontaneity.  Therefore,  as  there  can  be  no 
truly  developed  religion  without  morality,  so  there  can  be  no 
rightly  developed  morality  without  religion. 

Another  objection  has  been  urged,  that,  if  moral  character  is 
primarily  man’s  free  choice,  it  would  imply  that  he  is  independ¬ 
ent  of  God  and  able  to  form  a  right  character  without  any 
gracious  influence  from  God.  Here,  botn  in  urging  the  objec¬ 
tion  and  in  replying  to  it,  there  has  usually  not  been  a  clear  per¬ 
ception  of  the  facts  in  the  case.  The  objection  is  founded  on 
•the  fact  that  moral  character  is  declared  to  be  primarily  a  free 
choice.  But  this  declaration  implies  no  independence  of  God 
but  only  the  power  of  self-determination  essential  to  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  a  free  agent.  The  objection  applies  with  equal  force 
against  free  will  in  any  exercise  of  it  whatever.  It  would  logic¬ 
ally  lead  to  the  conclusion  recently  avowed  by  a  French  writer : 
“  If  there  were  a  single  free  being  in  the  universe  there  would  no 
longer  be  any  God.”  But,  while  man  is  a  rational  free  person, 
as  created  and  finite  he  is  always  dependent  on  God.  His  nor¬ 
mal  condition  is  that  of  union  with  God.  Religion  in  its  essence 
is  communion  with  God.  This  implies  communication  from  God 
to  man  as  well  as  reception  by  man  from  God.  Man  cannot 
even  have  any  knowledge  of  God  except  as  God  first  by  his  own 
action  reveals  himself  to  him  ;  as  he  can  have  no  knowledge  of 
the  sun  except  as  it  first  acts  and  reveals  itself.  A  man  cannot 
realize  the  highest  possibilities  of  his  own  being,  either  in  his  self¬ 
development  to  his  own  perfection  or  in  worthy  and  efficient 
work,  except  as  God  is  with  him  and  he  is  a  worker  together  with 
God.  It  is  the  glad  tidings  of  Christianity  that  God  in  redemp¬ 
tion  is  seeking  man  to  redeem  him  from  sin  and  draw  him  back 
to  union  and  communion  with  himself;  and  always  it  is  God  who 
first  seeks  man,  not  man  who  first  seeks  God.  God  so  loved  the 
world  that  he  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself ; 
antecedent  to  any  right  action  of  man  God  comes  to  him  with 
the  offers  and  influences  of  redeeming  grace,  proclaiming,  “Who- 


96  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


soever  will,  let  him  come.”  The  doctrine  that  man’s  love  to  God 
is  a  free  choice  is  in  no  contradiction  to  these  great  truths  of  the 
gospel.  It  simply  makes  the  point  that  it  is  by  the  man’s  own 
free  choice,  if  at  all,  that  he  yields  to  the  divine  influence, 
willingly  accepts  the  grace  offered  in  the  gospel  and  receives  into 
his  soul  the  heavenly  influences  which  are  seeking  admission  to 
quicken,  enlighten,  and  sustain  him  in  the  spiritual  life  of  love. 
In  this  free  act  receptive  of  God’s  grace  the  man  begins  the  new 
life.  Thenceforward  in  continuous  trust  in  God  he  goes  on  in 
the  Christian  life  in  free  and  willing  service,  receiving  always  by 
his  own  free  will  the  divine  influence  of  the  now  indwelling 
Spirit. 

The  doctrine  that  moral  character  is  primarily  free  choice  is 
further  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  those  who  deny  it  and  define 
moral  character  psychologically  as  an  affection,  find  insuperable 
difficulties  in  the  speculative  unfolding  and  the  practical  applica¬ 
tion  and  use  of  their  theory,  and  are  obliged  to  seek  some  higher 
principle  by  which  to  modify  it.  They,  therefore,  distinguish  the 
love  required  in  the  law  from  a  natural  disposition  or  affection  by 
recognizing  in  or  with  it  the  presence  and  control  of  a  rational 
principle ;  if  they  conceive  of  moral  character  as  in  its  beginning 
a  natural  disposition  or  affection,  still  in  its  exercise  it  has  in 
some  way  been  developed  into  a  rational  affection.  They  call 
it  rational  spontaneity,  which  is  only  a  translation  of  the  lubentia 
rationales  of  the  older  theology.  Some  have  flattered  themselves 
that  in  this  way  the  question  of  free  will  in  the  moral  character 
has  been  entirely  eliminated  ;  for,  the  love  of  God  not  being  an 
act  of  will,  but  a  rational  spontaneity,  the  question  of  free  will 
has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  This  phrase  involves  the  admission 
that  moral  character  must  combine  spontaneity  and  rational  di¬ 
rection.  A  natural  disposition  or  affection  or  instinct  is  spon¬ 
taneous  in  its  action.  But  a  spontaneity,  which  does  not  imply 
a  choice  between  two  nor  a  conscious  power  to  choose  either,  is 
a  mere  instinctive  spontaneity  of  nature.  It  is  the  spontaneity 
of  brutes  as  well  as  of  man.  It  is  the  spontaneity  ascribed  to 
man  by  materialists  and  pantheists  and  positivists  who  deny  man’s 
moral  freedom  and  responsibility.  Perceiving  this,  these  theo¬ 
logians  qualify  the  spontaneity  of  moral  affections  as  rational. 
The  significance  of  this  can  be  only  that  the  spontaneity  is  ration¬ 
ally  directed.  But  rationality  is  precisely  that  which,  qualifying 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  9 7 


power,  constitutes  it  free  will.  It  implies  that  the  spontaneity  is 
rationally  directed  ;  and  man’s  self-direction  or  self-determination 
is  the  prime  function  of  free  will.  The  problem  is  how  to  define 
moral  character  psychologically  so  as  to  include  the  two  qualities 
of  spontaneity  and  rational  direction  which  both  parties  find 
actually  to  exist  as  essential  in  it.  They  cannot  both  be  in¬ 
cluded  in  a  natural  disposition,  instinct,  or  affection,  because  it 
cannot  rise  above  itself  and  rationally  direct  itself  without  ceasing 
to  be  a  mere  affection  of  nature.  They  are  both  seen  to  be  es¬ 
sential  in  free  choice  so  soon  as  the  will  is  recognized  as  having 
the  power  of  choice  as  well  as  of  volition,  of  self-direction  as  well 
as  self-exertion.  The  free  choice  of  a  person  as  the  object  of 
trust  and  service  is  in  itself  an  elective  preference  which  carries 
in  it  spontaneity ;  at  the  same  time  it  is  freely  self-directive  or 
self-determining  in  the  light  of  reason.  And  this  is  the  only 
possible  rational  spontaneity  which  constitutes  a  psychological 
basis  for  the  right  conception  of  moral  character. 

5.  Character  as  the  supreme  choice  is  acted  out  and  expressed 
in  the  subordinate  choices  and  volitional  acts  in  harmony  with  it. 
The  choice  of  any  object  to  be  acquired,  possessed,  and  used  is 
necessarily  subordinate  to  the  choice  which  determines  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  the  energies  to  a  person  or  persons  as  the  object  of  trust 
and  service.  A  subordinate  choice  is  therefore  not  a  complete 
determination,  but  is  the  acting  out  and  expression  of  a  preced¬ 
ing  and  dominant  choice.  So  also  a  volition  is  never  a  complete 
determination,  but  is  the  actualization  and  expression  of  a  pre¬ 
ceding  choice.  If  one  chooses  self  as  the  supreme  object  of 
trust  and  service,  his  choice  of  wealth  or  of  any  object  of  acquisi¬ 
tion,  and  all  his  volitional  exertion  in  getting  and  using  it,  are  the 
acting  out  and  expression  of  this  supreme  selfishness.  If  he  loves 
God  as  supreme  and  his  neighbor  as  himself,  his  subordinate 
choices  and  volitions  will  be  the  actualization  and  expression 
of  this  supreme  love  in  acts  of  trust  and  service.  “  He  who  hath 
my  commandments  and  keepeth  them,  he  it  is  who  loveth  me 
.  .  .  If  a  man  love  me  he  will  keep  my  word.”  1  Therefore 
the  subordinate  choices  and  the  volitions,  as  the  actualization 
of  the  supreme  choice,  are  properly  included  in  moral  character 
in  its  primary  meaning.  And  it  is  not  supposable  that  supreme 
choice  can  exist  an  appreciable  time  without  any  corresponding 

1  John  xiv.  21,  23. 

VOL.  11.  —  7 


98  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


subordinate  choice  or  volition.  Actions  speak  louder  than  words. 
In  thought  we  distinguish  the  supreme  choice  from  its  manifesta¬ 
tions,  but  they  are  not  appreciably  separated  in  fact.  The 
choice  carries  in  it  the  direction  of  the  energies  to  the  person 
chosen  and  its  actualization  is  immediately  present  at  least  as 
a  purpose  to  act  in  the  direction  determined  by  the  choice.  It 
will  be  acted  out  in  distinct  acts  of  trust  and  service  as  oppor¬ 
tunity  is  given. 

Therefore  a  volitional  action  is  not  moral  character  in  itself, 
but  the  acting  out  of  moral  character  already  formed,  acting  in 
the  direction  already  determined.  Choice  aims  the  gun  ;  volition 
only  pulls  the  trigger.  Hence  the  same  volitional  exertion  may 
be  right  or  wrong,  according  to  the  supreme  choice  which  it 
expresses.  The  same  is  true  of  an  immanent  purpose  or  resolu¬ 
tion  to  do  something ;  and  it  is  true  of  a  subordinate  choice  to 
acquire  something  for  possession  and  use.  One  may  subject 
himself  to  severe  self-denial,  out  of  mere  miserliness.  One  may 
choose  learning  and  education  in  preference  to  wealth  in  order 
to  gratify  personal  ambition.  One  may  read  the  Bible  and  pray 
and  go  to  church  and  deny  his  desires  in  many  ways  to  save  his 
soul  from  hell ;  and  he  may  think  he  has  chosen  God  as  his 
supreme  end  in  order  thus  to  be  saved.  But  if  this  is  all, 
his  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  is  still  himself. 

But  the  choice  of  God  as  supreme  and  our  neighbor  as  our¬ 
selves  as  the  object  of  trust  and  service  is  right  in  itself  and  not 
as  the  actualization  and  expression  of  anything  anterior  to  or 
above  itself.  And  this  alone  is  right  moral  character  in  itself. 
It  can  never  be  wrong  under  any  circumstances  or  conditions. 
And  without  this  nothing  can  be  right  moral  character.  Thus 
the  ethics  of  the  New  Testament  amplifies  Kant’s  concep¬ 
tion  of  the  good-will  as  good  in  itself  and  gives  it  contents. 
Man,  self-determining  in  the  light  of  reason,  rises  above  the 
sphere  of  getting,  possessing,  and  using,  and  sees  himself  with  all 
his  fellow-men  in  the  unity  of  the  moral  system  in  their  common 
relations  to  God.  He  sees  his  range  of  choice  rising  and  widen¬ 
ing  into  the  sphere  of  personality,  the  realm  of  ends,  where  the 
activity  of  getting  and  using  is  transcended  and  ennobled  by  the 
activity  of  trusting  and  serving.  Here  he  is  to  choose  between 
himself  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service,  and  God 
with  himself  and  his  fellow-men  as  having  before  God  equal  rights 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  99 


in  the  unity  of  the  moral  system.  When  the  man  chooses  the 
latter,  then  he,  already  constituted  in  his  rational,  free  personality 
in  the  likeness  of  God,  rises  also  in  moral  character  into  God’s 
likeness.  That  choice  is  itself  love.  And  God  is  Love.  Uni¬ 
versal  love  like  that  of  God  is  right  character  in  itself  and  finds 
actualization  and  expression  in  all  the  subordinate  choices  and 
volitional  acts  and  vitalizes  them  with  the  same  divine  character. 
Then  we  see  that  all  the  well-being  of  man  is  included  in  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  its  advancement.  Then  the  man  seeks 
to  acquire  all  good  for  the  possession  and  use  of  man  in  trust 
in  God  and  in  his  service  in  the  advancement  of  his  kingdom. 
Kant  says  that  even  if  the  good-will  should  altogether  lack  the 
means  of  carrying  out  its  purpose  by  its  utmost  striving  and 
nothing  should  be  accomplished,  yet  the  good-will  would  remain 
bright  in  its  own  goodness.  This  is  true.  But,  according  to  the 
ethics  of  the  New  Testament,  failure  is  impossible.  The  good 
man  may  fail  to  succeed  in  a  particular  benevolent  enterprise. 
But  he  cannot  fail  to  realize  the  highest  possibilities  of  his  own 
being  nor  of  winning  imperishable  good  for  man.  Even  those 
who  bear  the  sad  but  glorious  name  of  Reformers  before  the 
Reformation,  the  martyrs  and  confessors,  all  Christian  men  and 
women  who  under  whatever  discouragements  have  been  faithful 
workers  for  Christ,  have  not  failed  to  advance  the  kingdom  of 
God  and  the  reign  of  truth,  righteousness,  and  love. 

It  follows  that  the  moral  character  of  an  act  is  not  determined 
by  its  motive.  This  error  is  a  necessary  inference  from  deter¬ 
minism.  If  the  motive  determines  the  will,  and  the  man  does 
not  determine,  then  the  moral  character  of  the  act  must  be 
referred  to  the  motive.  But  according  to  the  true  doctrine  the 
man  determines  his  own  character  in  his  supreme  choice,  which 
is  actualized  and  expressed  in  his  subordinate  choices  and  his 
volitional  acts.  The  moral  character  of  these  is  therefore  de¬ 
termined  by  the  supreme  choice  which  is  moral  character  in  its 
primary  meaning. 

It  is  objected  that  this  implies  that  the  end  justifies  the  means, — 
that  it  is  right  to  do  evil  that  good  may  come.  But  love  includes 
both  righteousness  and  benevolence.  It  is  not  unregulated  bene¬ 
volence  seeking  good  at  random.  It  is  benevolence  always 
regulated  by  law  and  exercised  in  righteousness.  Even  what  the 
good  is  which  is  possible  for  man,  is  determined  by  the  principles 


IOO  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


and  laws  of  reason.1  If  one  loves  God  and  his  neighbor,  he  must 
not  take  any  method  of  rendering  service  which  is  contrary  to 
eternal  truth  and  law.  In  serving  one  man,  he  must  not  violate 
the  rights  of  another.  In  serving  God,  he  must  not  violate  the 
just  rights  of  any  man,  as,  for  example,  in  offering  a  human  sacri¬ 
fice.  There  are  principles  and  rules  regulating  conduct  recorded 
in  the  Bible,  like  the  Ten  Commandments  ;  there  are  principles 
and  laws  ascertained  by  the  experience  and  observation  of  men, 
embodied  in  common  sentiments  of  morality,  in  the  common 
law,  and  in  civil  statutes,  which  are  guides  to  right  action  and 
must  be  considered  in  the  exercise  of  benevolence.  Men  are 
bound  to  educate  themselves  to  right  moral  discrimination  in 
selecting  their  methods  of  doing  good. 

6.  The  definition  of  moral  character  which  has  now  been 
given  is  the  only  true  psychological  basis  for  the  doctrine  of 
the  New  England  Theology  that  sin  and  holiness  are  free  volun¬ 
tary  actions ;  and  it  is  necessary  for  the  consistent  exposition 
and  intelligent  apprehension  of  that  doctrine.  The  great  work 
of  this  theology  has  been  to  vindicate  the  freedom  of  the  will,  to 
ascertain  the  range  and  bounds  of  moral  responsibility,  and  to 
define  what  constitutes  moral  character.  It  has  always  main¬ 
tained  that  the  range  of  moral  responsibility  is  commensurate 
with  that  of  free  will,  and  that  all  moral  action  and  character 
are  voluntary.  But  it  has  presented  different  psychological  con¬ 
ceptions  of  voluntariness.  The  elder  Edwards  in  his  philoso¬ 
phical  writings  refers  moral  character  to  the  will.  A  volume 
designed  for  popular  reading  he  entitled  “  A  Treatise  Concern¬ 
ing  Religious  Affections.  ”  Yet  he  begins  it  with  this  definition  : 
“  The  affections  are  no  other  than  the  more  vigorous  and  sen¬ 
sible  exercise  of  the  inclination  and  will  of  the  soul.”  He  has 
not  formally  distinguished  between  choice  and  volition.  But 
he  evidently  includes  among  the  determinations  of  the  will  that 
which  I  have  defined  as  choice.  In  fact,  he  seems  sometimes 
to  resolve  all  the  acts  of  the  will  into  it :  “  Whatever  names  we 
call  the  act  of  the  will  by,  —  choosing,  refusing,  approving,  disap¬ 
proving,  liking,  disliking,  embracing,  rejecting,  determining,  direct¬ 
ing,  commanding,  forbidding,  declining,  or  being  averse,  a  being 
pleased  or  displeased,  —  all  may  be  reduced  to  this  of  choosing. 
For  the  soul  to  act  voluntarily  is  evermore  to  act  electively.” 

1  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  271-281. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  IOI 


Some  have  held  that  the  love  required  in  the  law  is  an  affec¬ 
tion  produced  by  a  volition.  The  love  is  regarded  as  an  affection. 
But  moral  action  and  character  must  be  voluntary.  They  recog¬ 
nize  volition  as  the  only  function  of  the  will.  Therefore,  holy 
love  can  be  voluntary  only  when  caused  by  a  volition.  But  this 
is  contrary  to  all  experience  and  observation.  Affections  do  not 
arise  at  the, word  of  command  ;  they  are  not  created  by  volitions. 
One  cannot  by  a  volition  create  in  himself  a  warm,  loving  affec¬ 
tion  for  the  painted  chief  of  a  tribe  of  cannibals.  This  theory  is 
also  inconsistent  with  itself  as  well  as  with  the  common  moral 
sense  of  man.  It  implies  that  the  moral  character  is  in  the  affec¬ 
tion,  while  the  volition  causing  it  would  be  without  moral  char¬ 
acter.  If  to  escape  this  inconsistency  it  is  said  that  the  volition 
causing  the  affection  of  holy  love  is  itself  holy,  then  we  have  the 
absurdity  that  the  holy  moral  character  precedes  its  own  existence 
and  creates  itself. 

Dr.  Emmons  taught  that  moral  character  consists  solely  of 
atomistic  volitions.  Hence,  because  a  volition  is  a  simple  act 
and  cannot  be  divided  nor  mixed  with  aught  else,  a  man  in  a  right 
volition  is  perfectly  holy  with  no  mixture  of  sinful  character,  and 
in  a  wrong  volition  he  is  totally  sinful  with  no  mixture  of  right 
character.  A  Christian’s  growth  in  grace  would  be  only  the  less 
frequent  interruption  of  right  acts,  in  which  man  is  perfectly  holy, 
by  wrong  ones,  in  which  he  is  totally  sinful.  This  has  sometimes 
been  called  the  doctrine  of  simplicity  of  moral  action.  It  needs 
no  refutation.  In  preserving  the  freedom  of  moral  character,  it 
leaves  no  place  for  continuity,  unity,  spontaneity,  or  any  other 
element  essential  to  the  idea  of  moral  character.  It  does  not 
distinguish  character  from  the  acts  which  manifest  it.  It  ex¬ 
cludes  character  altogether.  In  fact,  it  comes  near  to  excluding 
the  person  and  his  personality,  leaving  nothing  but  a  series  of 
isolated  actions  without  an  agent.  Dr.  Emmons  was  supposed 
by  many  to  have  pushed  his  theory  to  this  extreme.  To  combat 
this  supposed  error,  President  Dwight  preached  a  sermon  in  the 
chapel  of  Yale  College,  published  in  his  theology  under  the  title, 
“  The  Soul  of  Man  not  a  Series  of  Ideas  and  Exercises.”  Dr. 
Emmons  also  taught  that  God  caused  by  his  own  immediate 
action  all  the  volitions  of  men,  the  wrong  not  less  than  the  right. 
“  He  exerts  his  agency  in  producing  all  the  free  and  voluntary 
exercises  of  every  moral  agent,  as  constantly  and  fully  as  in  pre- 


102  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


serving  and  supporting  his  existence.  It  is  as  demonstrably  cer¬ 
tain  that  God  exerts  his  agency  in  upholding  all  things  as  that  he 
exerted  his  agency  in  creating  all  things.”  “  He  has  always  been 
forming  vessels  of  mercy  and  vessels  of  wrath  from  the  beginning 
of  the  world  to  this  day ;  and  he  is  now  exercising  his  powerful 
and  irresistible  agency  upon  the  heart  of  every  one  of  the  human 
race  and  producing  either  holy  or  unholy  exercises  in  it.”  1  It  is 
a  curiosity  in  the  history  of  thought  that  a  man  of  his  type  of 
education,  belief,  and  character  should  have  taught  doctrines  so 
nearly  identical  with  agnosticism,  which  regards  the  human  mind 
as  merely  a  series  of  states  of  consciousness,  and  with  pantheism, 
which  recognizes  no  real  agency  except  that  of  God. 

The  common  arguments  against  the  doctrine  that  sin  and  holi¬ 
ness  are  voluntary,  have  been  urged  against  one  or  another 
of  the  defective  forms  of  it.  They  are  of  no  force  against  the 
doctrine  rightly  defined. 

III.  Character  in  its  Secondary  Meaning.  —  Moral  char¬ 
acter  in  its  secondary  meaning  as  psychologically  defined,  is  the 
state  of  the  intellect  and  of  the  sensibilities  or  feelings,  and 
the  habits  of  action,  so  far  as  formed  or  modified  by  voluntary 
action.  Therefore,  a  person,  ever  after  his  free  moral  action  be¬ 
gins,  is  morally  responsible  and  has  moral  character,  right  or 
wrong,  in  every  exercise  of  the  intellect  and  of  the  sensibilities 
and  in  every  habitual  action.  This  is  evident  for  the  following 
reasons. 

i.  While  the  states  of  the  intellect  and  sensibilities  and  the 
facility  of  action  acquired  by  practice  have  no  moral  character  in 
themselves  but  are  non-moral,  neither  right  nor  wrong,  moral 
character  is  induced  in  them  by  the  free  action  of  the  will  in 
forming  and  modifying  them. 

In  his  intellectual  action  a  person  by  his  free  will  directs  his 
attention  to  particular  objects  of  observation  and  investigation 
and  to  particular  topics  of  thought ;  he  selects  the  books  he  will 
read  and  the  lines  of  study  he  will  pursue  ;  he  subjects  himself  to 
processes  of  education  and  discipline.  Thus  the  knowledge  and 
the  development  of  intellectual  power  which  he  attains  are  due  to 
his  own  voluntary  self-determination  and  self-direction.  While 
there  are  constitutional  diversities  of  talent  and  genius,  superiority 

1  Works,  vol.  iv.  Sermon  28,  pp.  383,  388. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  103 


of  knowledge  and  of  intellectual  resources  and  power  is  largely 
created  by  the  person’s  own  diligent  and  wise  direction  and  ex¬ 
ertion  of  his  own  powers.  Bulwer  says,  “  Purpose  is  the  marrow 
and  backbone  of  genius.”  Buffon  said,  “  Genius  is  a  long  pa¬ 
tience.”  Though  these  definitions  are  more  striking  than  dis¬ 
criminating,  there  is  still  an  important  truth  in  them.  In  like 
manner  ignorance  and  defective  intellectual  development  may  be 
due  to  the  person’s  own  wilful  neglect  of  opportunities  and  exer¬ 
tion.  His  errors  and  prejudices  may  be  due  to  opposition  of  his 
will  to  the  truth.  The  law  of  the  association  of  ideas  is  beyond 
the  control  of  the  human  will.  But  if  in  a  person’s  mind  every¬ 
thing  is  associated  with  the  vulgar,  the  sensuous,  and  the  obscene, 
his  own  chosen  familiarity  with  such  things  may  have  created  the 
association  of  ideas.  It  may  only  show  that  “  his  heart  is  as  fat 
as  grease.”  1 

By  the  free  action  of  his  will  a  person  inflames  his  natural 
appetites  and  desires  into  unnatural  excitability,  —  as  the  appetite 
of  a  drunkard,  the  all-absorbing  passion  of  the  gambler,  and  the 
miser’s  consuming  eagerness  to  hoard.  Even  novel-reading  may 
generate  an  insatiable  desire  for  excitement  and  mental  intoxi¬ 
cation  destroying  all  interest  in  reading  for  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge  and  culture.  By  voluntary  action  the  innocent  and 
healthful  natural  propensities  and  even  the  rational  and  spiritual 
susceptibilities  may  be  left  undeveloped  or  deadened  into  tor¬ 
pidity.  Accordingly  Paul  mentions  “  without  natural  affection  ” 
among  the  characteristics  of  extreme  depravity.2  On  the  other 
hand,  by  his  own  free  action  one  may  develop  the  natural  affec¬ 
tions  to  their  normal  state  and  in  his  choice  of  God  bring  all  the 
rational  and  spiritual  motives  and  emotions  into  action  and  de¬ 
velop  them  all  into  harmony  with  each  other  and  with  the  supreme 
choice.  Thus  the  man  with  all  his  diversified  powers  and  sus¬ 
ceptibilities,  becomes  like  a  well-ordered  commonwealth,  develop¬ 
ing  all  its  powers  and  resources  in  harmony  and  peace  under  the 
rule  of  righteous  and  beneficent  law. 

Habit  is  a  facility  in  an  action  or  a  series  of  actions  and  a 
proclivity  to  it  acquired  by  voluntary  practice.  Such  is  the  facility 
in  playing  on  a  musical  instrument,  in  extemporaneous  speaking, 
in  an  accountant’s  addition  of  figures,  and  the  proclivity  is 

1  Psalm  cxix.  70. 

2  Rom.  i.  31  ;  2  Tim.  iii.  3. 


104  THE  LORD  of  all  in  moral  government 


exemplified  in  numberless  ways  of  acting  which  have  become 
secondarily  automatic  and  which  one  finds  it  exceedingly  diffi¬ 
cult  with  the  utmost  care  and  pains  to  avoid.  Habit  is  often  not 
clearly  distinguished  from  character.  So  Thomas  Aquinas  uses 
habitus.  Modern  theologians  frequently  use  the  word  in  a  way 
implying  that  it  is  the  essence  of  character ;  for  example,  they 
speak  of  moral  and  spiritual  growth  as  if  it  consisted  essentially 
in  forming  habits.  But  habit  is  only  one  of  the  aspects  of  char¬ 
acter  in  its  secondary  sense.  As  a  mere  facility  and  proclivity  it 
is  non-moral ;  it  is  neither  right  nor  wrong.  A  habit  belongs  to 
moral  character  only  because  it  has  been  formed  by  free  acts  of 
the  will  in  continued  practice. 

2.  In  every  impulse  of  the  feelings  and  proclivity  of  habit 
constituting  a  motive  to  action,  the  person  freely  determines 
whether  to  yield  to  it  or  resist  it ;  in  every  intellectual  process  and 
conclusion,  which  has  any  practical  bearing  on  the  life,  the  will 
either  consents  or  opposes. 

In  the  sphere  of  the  intellect  the  action  of  the  will  appears 
both  at  the  conclusion  and  in  the  process  of  investigation.  When 
a  conclusion  of  any  investigation  has  been  reached,  if  it  has  any 
practical  bearing  on  life,  the  person  by  his  free  will  either  con¬ 
sents  to  it  and  thus  brings  his  action  and  life  into  harmony  with 
it,  or  he  opposes  it  and  lives  in  disharmony  with  it.  When  one 
has  become  convinced  that  he  owes  a  particular  service  or  duty 
to  his  neighbor,  he  must  in  the  exercise  of  his  free  will  either 
consent  to  it  and  render  the  service  due  or  oppose  it  and  refuse 
to  render  the  service.  And  in  any  process  of  investigation,  the 
result  of  which  has  any  practical  bearing  on  the  interests  of  the 
investigator  or  on  the  well-being  of  man,  the  consent  or  opposition 
of  the  will  has  an  important  influence  on  the  assent  or  dissent  of 
the  intellect.  It  may  constitute  a  bias  for  or  against  an  opinion 
or  conclusion.  Or  it  may  constitute  the  fairness  and  openness  of 
mind  which  come  from  willingness  to  receive  the  truth,  whatever 
it  may  be.  And  because  truth  and  duty,  truth  and  right  charac¬ 
ter,  are  always  in  harmony,  he  whose  will  is  right  with  God,  the 
eternal  Reason  perfect  in  wisdom  and  love,  is  always  in  an  atti¬ 
tude  more  favorable  to  the  discovery  and  reception  of  truth  than 
that  of  one  whose  will  is  fixed  in  selfishness  in  opposition  to  God, 
the  universal  Reason,  the  absolute  Truth,  Wisdom,  and  Love.  A 
refined  woman  is  a  better  judge  of  cleanliness  than  a  savage  in 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  105 


his  wigwam  ;  a  pure  person  is  a  better  judge  of  purity  than  one 
steeped  in  the  stews  of  licentiousness ;  one  who  delights  in  the 
beautiful  is  a  better  judge  of  beauty  than  one  who  is  indifferent  to 
it ;  an  honorable  man  has  the  keenest  perception  of  what  is 
honorable  and  what  is  mean ;  an  honest  man  is  the  best  judge  of 
what  is  honest  as  distinguished  from  fraud ;  a  virtuous  man  best 
knows  what  virtue  is ;  and  the  man  who  trusts  and  serves  God  in 
supreme  love  is  the  best  qualified  to  understand  spiritual  and 
religious  truth  and  to  discriminate  between  it  and  error.1 

This  exposes  the  falsity  of  the  doctrine  that  total  indifference 
whether  any  belief  is  true  or  false,  whatever  its  practical  influence, 
is  the  only  condition  of  fair  and  candid  investigation.  This  error 
implies  that  in  investigating  any  subject  one  must  hold  as  uncer¬ 
tain  all  which  he  has  supposed  himself  to  know ;  must  strip  him¬ 
self  of  all  the  beliefs  which  he  has  lived  by,  and  begin  in  puris 
naturalibus  of  intellectual  savagery  as  if  he  had  never  known 
anything.  He  must  put  aside  as  a  prejudice  any  belief  which  he 
may  have  in  favor  of  the  law  of  gravitation,  or  of  the  fact  that  the 
earth  revolves  on  its  axis,  or  of  the  moral  truth  that  love  is  better 
than  malignity.  And  because  he  must  be  always  in  this  know- 
nothing  attitude  it  implies  that  there  is  nothing  to  be  known. 
But  true  intellectual  progress  is  possible  only  from  knowledge  to 
knowledge.  The  error  implies  also  that  there  is  no  true  reason 
in  the  reality  and  constitution  of  things  for  preferring  virtue  to 
vice,  or  God  and  your  neighbor  as  yourself,  rather  than  yourself 
as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service.  It  is  only  on  this 
supposition  that  indifference  to  the  practical  bearing  of  beliefs 
can  be  a  condition  essential  to  the  knowledge  of  truth.  If  there 
is  reality  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe  which  is  a  reason  for 
preference,  then  he  who  chooses  God  and  his  neighbor  as  himself 
as  objects  of  trust  and  service,  is  in  a  condition  more  favorable  to 
discovering  and  rightly  apprehending  the  truth  than  one  who 
chooses  self  as  his  supreme  object.  And  according  to  the  prin¬ 
ciple  that  like  knows  like,  the  one  who  loves  God  and  all  men  is 
the  one  who  is  most  like  God ;  for  God  is  love ;  and  therefore  he 
is  one  who  knows  God  best.  And  here,  again,  the  demand  for 
indifference  as  the  essential  prerequisite  of  knowledge  implies  the 
impossibility  of  knowledge.  For  indifference  is  justifiable  only 
on  the  supposition  that  one  proposition  is  no  more  true  than 

1  John  vii.  17;  I  Pet.  ii.  1,  2;  I  Cor.  ii.  14,  15. 


106  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


another,  and  that  there  are  no  unchangeable  truths  and  laws,  no 
reality  in  the  universe  on  which  human  well-being  depends. 

And  on  the  principle  that  it  is  a  condition  prerequisite  to  can¬ 
did  investigation  of  truth  that  the  mind  be  defecated  from  all  in¬ 
terest  in  its  practical  bearing,  it  becomes  impossible  to  attain  the 
knowledge  of  anything  in  its  true  significance.  For  the  universe 
exists  in  the  unity  of  a  system  in  which  everything  is  interacting  with 
everything  in  the  unity  of  the  whole.  Professor  Du  Bois  says  :  “  The 
physicist  tells  us,  and  tells  us  truly,  that  when  I  simply  raise  my 
hand  I  introduce  a  disturbance  into  the  vast  mechanism,  the  effects 
of  which  extend  —  must  extend — through  the  whole  solar  system. 

.  .  .  That  single  act  we  trace  back  to  motion  of  brain  particles. 
These  motions  obey  my  will.  By  will  I  raise  my  hand.  To  will 
matter  responds.  At  the  bidding  of  my  will  the  universe  is 
changed.”1  The  physical  system  is  in  the  most  intimate  correla¬ 
tions  with  man.  Every  discovery  of  science  is  a  guide  to  inven¬ 
tion  in  giving  man  control  over  the  powers  and  resources  of  nature. 
Aluminium  when  discovered  was  not  supposed  to  be  of  practical 
use.  But  now,  if  some  cheap  way  of  extracting  it  can  be  discov¬ 
ered,  it  promises  to  revolutionize  structural  mechanics,  and  even, 
as  the  more  sanguine  anticipate,  to  bring  in  the  age  of  aluminium 
to  succeed  the  ages  of  stone,  bronze,  and  iron.  One  who  does 
not  learn  the  possible  practical  uses  of  a  substance  and  applica¬ 
tions  of  a  force,  has  but  a  very  defective  knowledge  of  it.  The 
Baconian  advancement  of  science  was  not  due  to  his  theory  of 
induction,  which  in  fact  is  no  longer  recognized  by  scientists  as 
the  true  method  of  scientific  discovery.  It  was  due  rather  to  his 
directing  attention  away  from  abstract  speculation  to  the  practical 
uses  of  knowledge. 

We  live,  also,  in  the  moral  system  bound  in  unity  under  the 
law  of  universal  love.  Here  the  unity  and  interaction  of  all  persons 
in  the  moral  system  are  closely  analogous  to  the  unity  and  interac¬ 
tion  of  all  bodies  and  forces  in  the  physical  system.  The  law  of 
love  assumes  that  the  action  of  every  person,  even  of  a  little  child, 
is  to  reach  up  to  God  and  abroad  to  every  rational  being  to  remot¬ 
est  space  and  through  all  time.  Every  being  in  his  moral  charac¬ 
ter  and  action  is  putting  forth  influences  which  pulsate  outward 
and  onward  through  the  moral  system.  “  There  is  joy  in  heaven 
over  one  sinner  who  repenteth.”  A  good  influence  exerted  on  a 

1  Science  and  the  Spiritual,  p.  15. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  107 


child  in  the  slums  of  a  city  to-day  may  result  in  a  life  of  faith 
and  love  and  blessedness  to  the  child  forever,  and  to  innumerable 
others  influenced  by  the  child  himself,  and  to  multitudes  influ¬ 
enced  for  good  by  these  others  and  by  those  whom  they  shall 
influence,  in  ever  increasing  numbers  forever.  In  this  moral 
system,  to  be  ignorant  of  the  practical  duties  and  relations  which 
bind  persons  to  each  other  and  the  reciprocal  practical  influences 
which  they  exert  on  each  other,  is  to  be  ignorant  of  all  that  con¬ 
stitutes  it  a  moral  system.  To  be  indifferent  to  these  practical 
relations,  duties,  and  influences  is  a  sin  against  the  fundamental 
and  universal  law  of  love  which  binds  the  system  together  in 
unity.  And  because  a  right  moral  character  consists  primarily  in 
universal  love,  he  who  does  not  love  God  and  his  neighbor  has 
never  known  in  experience  what  a  right  moral  character  is.  He 
can  know  it  only  as  a  theory.  He  is  as  incapacitated  for  forming 
a  right  judgment  in  moral  and  spiritual  questions  as  a  blind  man 
is  for  judging  of  colors  or  a  deaf  man  for  judging  of  music,  know¬ 
ing  only  theoretically  the  laws  of  light  which  he  has  never  seen, 
and  of  sound  which  he  has  never  heard. 

Under  any  excitement  of  the  sensibilities  the  person  in  the 
exercise  of  free  will  either  yields  to  it  or  resists  it.  Thus  he  is 
responsible  for  his  action.1 

The  same  is  true  of  habit.  One  is  under  no  necessity  of  acting 
according  to  the  influence  of  a  habit.  He  freely  consents  or 
resists.  It  is  by  consenting  and  acting  accordingly  that  the 
habit  is  strengthened.  xYnd  by  resisting,  it  may  be  weakened  and 
its  power  ultimately  broken. 

Even  if  a  person  follow  an  impulse  thoughtlessly,  he  does  not 
cease  to  be  morally  responsible  for  doing  so.  Under  whatever 
impulse  of  feeling  or  habit,  he  can  never  divest  himself  of  his 
rationality,  nor  of  his  moral  freedom  and  responsibility,  nor  of 
his  consequent  obligation  to  choose  and  act  aright,  nor  of  his 
moral  character  in  his  action.  Even  a  mother  in  the  exercise  of 
that  most  beautiful,  amiable,  and  beneficent  affection,  maternal 
love,  cannot  rightfully  give  herself  up  to  the  care  and  enjoyment 
of  her  child  with  no  recognition  of  the  relations  of  herself  and  her 
child  to  God  and  man  in  the  moral  system,  and  to  the  duties 
incident  thereto.  And  the  consciousness  of  this  finds  expres¬ 
sion  in  the  common  language  of  men.  They  are  wont  to  say 

1  1  Cor.  x.  31  ;  Matth.  v.  28 ;  Eph.  iv.  26. 


108  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


a  man  has  given  himself  up  to  the  dominion  of  an  appetite 
or  a  desire. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  a  person  is  morally  responsible, 
not  only  for  states  of  intellect  and  sensibilities,  and  habits  of 
action  formed  or  modified  by  his  own  free  action,  but  also,  at 
every  moment  when  under  their  influence,  for  his  own  free  deter¬ 
mination  consenting  to  or  resisting  it.  In  preaching'  that  the 
sensibilities  and  the  intellectual  activities  are  non-moral,  and  have 
no  moral  character  in  themselves,  we  must  not  so  preach  as  to 
imply  that  the  man  is  without  moral  character  in  any  of  them. 
For  we* see  that  the  man  has  moral  responsibility,  obligation,  and 
character  through  all  the  ramifications  of  intellect,  feeling  and 
habit,  and  in  every  act  under  their  influence.  So  Paul,  selecting 
an  appetite  apparently  the  furthest  possible  from  moral  and  spir¬ 
itual  life,  commands :  “  Whether  ye  eat  or  drink,  or  whatever  ye 
do,  do  all  for  the  glory  of  God.”  So  our  Lord  declares  man’s 
moral  responsibility  and  God’s  exact  note  of  it  in  the  minutest 
actions.  “  Whosoever  shall  give  to  drink  unto  one  of  these  little 
ones  a  cup  of  cold  water  only,  in  the  name  of  a  disciple,  verily  I 
say  unto  you,  he  shall  in  no  wise  lose  his  reward.”  “And  I  say 
unto  you  that  every  idle  word  which  men  shall  speak,  they  shall 
give  account  thereof  in  the  day  of  judgment.” 1  Thus  the 
minutest  voluntary  action  is  weighty  with  moral  responsibility ; 
and  may  be  ennobled  and  glorified  as  the  expression  and  actual¬ 
ization  of  Christian  love. 

This  brings  us  to  the  sphere  of  minor  morals ;  it  is  properly  so 
called  as  recognizing  obligation  to  act  in  Christian  love  even  in 
little  things.  The  ancients  used  the  same  word  to  express  morals 
and  manners.  It  is  evident  that  politeness  and  good  manners 
come  within  the  sphere  of  morals.  Politeness  in  its  essence  con¬ 
sists  in  studying  to  insure  the  comfort  and  pleasure  of  those  who 
are  in  company  with  us.  It  is  carrying  out  the  law  of  Christian 
love  in  the  minor  amenities  and  courtesies  of  life.  But  there  has 
arisen  a  tacit  conventional  agreement  as  to  what  is  agreeable  in 
social  intercourse,  conformity  with  which  constitutes  good  man¬ 
ners.  These  conventionalities  of  society  are  not  to  be  disre¬ 
garded,  for  they  are  the  safeguard  which  society  has  established 
against  inconvenience,  and  against  rude  and  offensive  behavior. 
It  is  the  duty  of  a  Christian,  and  especially  of  a  Christian  min- 

1  i  Cor.  x.  31  ;  Matth.  x.  42 ;  xii.  36. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  1 09 


ister,  not  only  to  be  “  kindly  affectioned  ”  toward  all,  which  is  the 
root  of  real  politeness,  but  also  to  have  good  manners ;  so  that  he 
may  not  express  his  kindly  spirit  in  offensive  ways,  as  the  donkey 
in  the  fable  did  when  it  began  to  frisk  and  jump  on  his  master  in 
imitation  of  the  dog. 

One  is  responsible  even  for  his  looks  and  his  tones  of  voice.  A 
life  of  temperance  and  industry,  conformed  to  the  laws  of  health, 
develops  the  body  to  its  best.  Habitual  benignity  and  nobleness 
of  spirit  beam  in  the  face  and  give  tone  and  modulation  to  the 
voice.  Sensuality  and  other  vices  imprint  bestiality  and  brutality 
on  the  face  and  form. 

But  in  the  sphere  of  minor  morals  there  is  danger  of  morbid 
self-consciousness  and  introspection.  If  in  company  one  is  con¬ 
sciously  governing  his  behaviour  by  rule,  he  is  inevitably  stiff  and 
awkward ;  his  hands  and  his  feet  are  in  his  way  and  he  does  not 
know  what  to  do  with  them.  Analogous  must  the  effect  be  if  in 
every  little  act  of  minor  morals  he  is  in  like  manner  consciously 
hemmed  in  by  the  prickly  hedge  of  rules.  Hawthorne  said  of  an 
acquaintance  :  “  His  conscientiousness  seems  to  be  a  kind  of  itch 
keeping  him  always  uneasy  and  scratching.”  And  if  in  these  acts 
one  brings  to  mind  all  the  solemnities  of  the  last  judgment  and 
thinks  that  his  eternal  destiny  depends  on  doing  it  just  right,  it 
crushes  the  freedom  and  ease  of  life.  We  must  rather  cherish 
the  spirit  of  Christian  love  to  all,  in  little  things  as  well  as  great, 
and  form  habits  of  action,  so  that  in  all  these  matters  of  minor 
morals  we  shall  act  aright  spontaneously.  In  fact  we  come  to  act 
thus  spontaneously  in  the  greater  deeds  of  Christian  love,  when 
once  the  character  is  completely  developed  and  fashioned.  Ac¬ 
tion  in  the  spontaneity  of  love  is  ethically  of  a  higher  order  of 
character  than  doing  duty  under  the  sense  of  imperative  obliga¬ 
tion.  So  the  spontaneous  good  manners  of  one  trained  from 
childhood  in  the  best  society  are  superior  to  those  of  one  con¬ 
sciously  striving  to  behave  genteelly. 

IV.  Beginning  of  Moral  Character.  —  By  free  moral  action 
a  person  emerges  from  the  non-moral  condition  of  infancy  and 
acquires  moral  character  ;  and  by  his  continued  moral  action,  either 
right  or  wrong,  this  character  is  progressively  developed  till  his 
supreme  choice  becomes  confirmed  and  fixed,  so  that  no  moral 
influence  will  ever  induce  him  to  choose  the  contrary. 


IIO  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


Every  child  originates  his  moral  character  when,  in  the  light  of 
reason  and  under  the  influence  of  rational  motives,  having  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  distinction  of  right  and  wrong  and  being  conscious  of 
moral  obligation  and  duty,  he  makes  his  first  free  choice  in  con¬ 
scious  obedience  or  disobedience  to  moral  law.  A  child  is  born  a 
rational  being  with  rational,  moral,  and  spiritual  powers  and  sus¬ 
ceptibilities  potential  in  his  constitution,  but  not  yet  developed  to 
conscious  activity.  For  some  time  after  birth  only  the  animal  life 
of  the  organism  is  revealed.  The  infant  is  incapable  of  knowing 
God  and  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong.  Consequently 
it  is  without  moral  and  religious  character,  incapable  of  rational, 
free  moral  action,  and  without  moral  responsibility.  The  personal 
spirit  is  hidden  in  the  organism,  like  the  germ  in  a  seed  which  in 
its  appropriate  environment  is  about  to  shoot  forth  and  grow  into 
a  tree.  When  with  the  growth  of  the  child  the  rational  and  moral 
powers  and  susceptibilities  potential  in  its  constitution  are  devel¬ 
oped  into  conscious  action,  then  its  moral  responsibility  and 
character  begin  and  its  personality  is  revealed. 

Theologians  have  often  failed  to  mark  accurately  the  distinction 
between  constitution  or  nature,  and  moral  character.  Many  have 
taught  that  the  nature  born  in  a  child  is  itself  sinful.  But  this 
identification  of  moral  character  with  nature  annuls  all  real  signi¬ 
ficance  both  of  moral  character  and  moral  responsibility  and  obli¬ 
gation.  Others  have  used  language  implying  that  an  infant  at 
birth  has  no  rational,  moral,  and  spiritual  constitution,  —  is  not  in 
fact  a  personal  being,  but  creates  its  own  moral  constitution  in  its 
first  rational  and  free  moral  action.  Professor  James  F.  Ferrier 
says  :  “  I  have  no  moral  nature  before  the  distinction  of  right  and 
wrong  is  revealed  to  me.  My  moral  nature  exists  subsequently  to 
this  revelation.  At  any  rate  I  acquire  a  moral  nature,  if  not  after, 
yet  in  the  very  act  which  brings  me  the  distinction.  The  distinc¬ 
tion  exists  as  an  immutable  institution  of  God  prior  to  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  our  minds.  And  it  is  the  knowledge  of  this  distinction 
which  forms  the  prime  constituent,  not  of  our  moral  acquisitions, 
but  of  our  moral  existence.”  Some  go  so  far  as  to  imply  that  a 
man  does  not  become  a  personal  spirit  until  he  is  regenerated  by 
the  Spirit  of  God.  Others  teach  that  the  child  is  born  into  a  pro¬ 
bation  in  which  he  determines  by  his  own  action  whether  he  shall 
become  a  personal,  immortal  spirit  or  sink  out  of  being.  If  he 
loves,  trusts,  and  serves  God,  God  will  make  him  an  immortal 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  I  I  I 


spirit.  If  he  lives  in  sin,  he  will  never  become  a  rational,  living, 
immortal  spirit.  But  certainly  one  not  already  constituted  with 
the  potential  powers  and  susceptibilities  of  a  personal  spirit  can¬ 
not  be  thus  on  probation.  For  he  would  be  a  mere  animal  with 
no  power'  to  know  God  and  moral  obligation  and  law,  and  there¬ 
fore  with  no  capacity  of  free  will  to  do  right  or  wrong,  to  choose 
God  or  to  refuse  him  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service. 
But  if  we  clearly  distinguish  nature  or  constitution  from  character, 
it  is  evident  that  an  infant  is  born  with  the  constitution  of  a 
rational,  personal  being,  and  that  it  is  his  moral  character,  and 
not  his  nature  or  constitution,  which  he  originates  by  his  own  free 
action. 

It  may  be  impossible  to  determine  the  precise  moment  when 
a  child  originates  its  moral  character.  Its  moral  development 
cannot  begin  by  presenting  to  it  the  law  of  universal  love.  The 
moral  ideas  contained  in  that  law  must  first  be  attained.  And 
this  must  be  accomplished  by  attending  to  detailed  precepts 
rather  than  to  the  general  principle  of  the  law.  The  conscious¬ 
ness  of  moral  obligation,  of  right  and  wrong,  of  law  and  duty, 
must  be  awakened  and  developed  by  commands  and  prohibitions 
of  particular  acts,  —  as  the  commands  of  a  parent  to  a  child.  The 
idea  of  love  must  be  unfolded  in  the  application  of  the  law  of 
love  to  particular  persons  in  specific  acts.  The  knowledge  of 
moral  relations  and  of  membership  in  a  moral  system  must  be 
attained  in  the  intercourse  of  the  child  with  persons  of  the  family 
who  come  into  immediate  communication  with  it.  The  family  is 
its  world.1  Thus  moral  feelings  and  ideas  precede  the  distinct¬ 
ively  religious  in  the  consciousness  of  the  child  and  prepare  the 
way  for  the  knowledge  of  God  and  the  higher  spiritual  apprehen¬ 
sion  of  the  law  of  love.  Yet  the  child  is  susceptible  of  the  know¬ 
ledge  of  God  and  welcomes  it  at  a  very  early  age.  A  little  boy, 
whom  at  bed-time  his  mother  had  taught  for  the  first  time  to 
pray  to  God,  was  overheard,  after  she  had  left  the  room,  saying 
over  and  over,  “  I  like  God.”  This  early  receptivity  of  the  idea 
shows  that  man  is  constituted  with  religious  susceptibilities  and 
needs  the  knowledge  of  God  for  his  moral  development.  When 
the  child  has  attained  the  knowledge  of  God,  he  can  intelligently 
and  consciously  choose  or  refuse  God  as  the  supreme  object  of 
trust  and  service.  But  it  may  be  that  the  will  in  obeying  or  dis- 
1  See  “  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,”  pp.  209,  210. 


I  12  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


obeying  merely  moral  precepts  takes  a  religious  character  into 
itself  either  of  selfishness  or  of  love.  God  may  see  love  in  the 
child’s  heart  accompanied  with  very  little  clear  conception  of 
what  God  is.  A  little  German  girl,  who  was  making  a  cradle- 
quilt  for  the  child  Jesus  which  she  expected  to  put  over  him  at 
Christmas,  may  have  been  actuated  by  a  genuine  love.  If  so, 
when  she  had  passed  beyond  her  childlike  conceptions  and  attain¬ 
ments  to  a  truer  notion  of  the  God  in  Christ,  she  would  find  her¬ 
self  ready  to  trust  and  serve  him. 

So,  in  the  ruder  stages  of  society,  men  needed  for  their  moral 
development  and  progress  commands  and  rules  enforced  by 
authority.  As  the  parent  in  ruling  the  children  develops  their 
moral  susceptibilities  and  ideas,  so  in  the  primitive  patriarchal 
government  man  was  morally  developed  by  the  ruler’s  specific 
commands  and  laws.  Some  anthropologists  insist  that  this  was  a 
necessary  step  in  the  progress  of  man  beyond  the  reign  of  mere 
power  to  accept  the  reign  of  law  in  its  higher  and  benign  signifi¬ 
cance  as  recognizing  the  rights  of  man.  So  the  biblical  rep¬ 
resentation  is  that  God  began  the  moral  and  religious  education 
of  the  first  man  and  woman  by  subjecting  them  to  a  specific  pro¬ 
hibition. 

V.  Development  and  Confirmation  of  Character.  —  When 
a  person  has  thus  originated  his  moral  character,  he  develops  and 
confirms  it  by  continued  voluntary  action  in  the  direction  deter¬ 
mined  by  the  choice.  This  is  effected  in  various  lines. 

i.  The  supreme  choice  itself  is  strengthened  and  confirmed 
both  by  volitional  action  in  accordance  with  it  and  by  a  clearer 
and  larger  comprehension  of  its  significance. 

It  is  continually  strengthened  and  confirmed  by  volitional 
action.  Men  differ  in  strength  of  will.  One  is  known  as  a  per¬ 
son  of  a  very  strong  will,  of  great  strength  of  purpose.  Another 
is  known  as  of  feeble  will,  irresolute  and  vacillating.  So  in  the 
same  person  there  may  be  a  progressive  increase  of  strength  of 
will  through  persistent  acting  in  accordance  with  its  determina¬ 
tion,  surmounting  all  difficulties  and  resisting  all  opposition  that 
would  deter  and  all  temptations  which  would  entice  to  a  contrary 
determination. 

The  supreme  choice  is  also  confirmed  by  clearer  and  larger 
comprehension  of  its  real  significance.  At  first  an  infant  follows 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  I  1 3 


its  natural  instincts  and  impulses  like  a  little  animal.  The  higher 
rational  and  moral  powers  and  susceptibilities  give  no  sign  of  their 
influence  or  presence.  It  is  a  grand  epoch  when  first  the  idea  of 
duty  and  of  the  law  of  God  breaks  into  the  mind  of  a  child,  sends 
into  his  animal  life  of  nature  and  of  sense  the  first  gleam  from  the 
higher  realm  of  spirit,  awakens  his  spirit  to  action  and  gives  him 
his  first  glimpse  of  his  spiritual  powers  and  susceptibilities  and  of 
his  relations  to  God  and  the  spiritual  system.  In  that  epoch,  as 
from  the  heights  of  our  maturity  we  see  it,  the  spirit  of  the  child 
comes  forth  from  the  darkness  and  mystery  of  birth  and  takes 
command  of  the  restless  natural  appetites  and  desires,  like  Jesus 
coming  from  the  darkness  of  the  night  on  the  turbulent  sea  and 
taking  command  of  the  waves  and  the  storm.  But  in  his  first 
free  moral  act  the  child  does  not  see  its  grandeur ;  he  is  not  even 
aware  that  it  is  an  epoch  in  his  life ;  he  knows  very  little  of  its 
real  significance.  His  moral  powers  and  susceptibilities  have 
begun  to  assert  themselves  in  his  consciousness.  He  has  been 
taught,  it  may  be,  that  God  exists,  and  that  it  is  his  law  which  he 
is  required  to  obey.  His  reason,  his  conscience,  and  all  the 
higher  elements  of  his  constitution  take  sides  with  the  require¬ 
ment.  But  he  knows  very  little  of  what  God  is,  of  what  he  is 
himself,  of  what  the  moral  law  and  the  moral  system  are,  and  of 
what  are  his  own  relations  to  it.  Hence  his  first  moral  choice  is 
comparatively  unintelligent  and  feeble.  It  pertains  to  some  par¬ 
ticular  duty  and  to  the  little  circle  of  home  and  friends  that  as 
yet  constitutes  the  whole  of  his  known  world,  with  only  the  dim¬ 
mest  apprehension  of  the  love  which  the  law  requires  and  of  the 
wide  range  of  duty  to  God  and  to  all  moral  beings  in  the  univer¬ 
sal  moral  system.  Therefore  the  measure  of  his  moral  respon¬ 
sibility,  of  his  good  or  ill  deserc,  must  be  in  proportion  to  the 
immaturity  of  his  character.  And,  so  gradual  is  the  development 
of  reason,  of  free  will  and  the  rational  susceptibilities,  it  is  as 
impossible  to  note  precisely  the  beginning  of  moral  responsibility 
and  character,  as  it  is  to  note  the  first  moment  of  the  dawn. 
How  grand  an  event  is  the  rising  of  the  sun,  how  great  the  change 
from  night  to  day.  And  yet  the  first  scarcely  distinguishable  ray 
of  the  dawn  is  as  really  of  the  day  and  not  of  the  night,  as  really 
the  opposite  and  contrary  of  darkness,  as  is  the  noon-day  light. 

If  the  child’s  first  moral  choice  is  wrong,  it  is  merely  a  con¬ 
tinued  following  of  the  impulses  of  nature,  though  now  witli  the 

VOL.  11.  — 8 


I  14  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT; 


consciousness  of  not  doing  right.  He  does  not  recognize  it  in 
its  real  significance  as  the  choice  of  self  as  the  supreme  object  of 
trust  and  service.  He  does  not  feel  the  strength  of  the  motives, 
nor  see  the  significance  of  the  reasons  for  obeying,  trusting,  and 
serving  God.  But  as,  in  advancing  to  maturity,  he  more  and  more 
sees  these  reasons  and  motives  in  their  true  significance,  if  he 
persists  in  disobedience,  by  continued  resistance  his  will  is 
strengthened  in  his  dominant  choice.  It  is  also  true  that  in  the 
same  way  his  sinful  character  is  more  and  more  revealed  to  him¬ 
self  as  well  as  to  others.  Thus  seeing  his  sinfulness  he  may  yield 
to  God’s  gracious  influence  drawing  men  to  himself,  and  turn  with 
penitence  to  God  and  choose  him  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust 
and  service.  This  act  of  turning  to  God  may  be  the  only  change 
of  the  supreme  choice  during  the  person’s  life  and  indeed  during 
his  immortal  existence.  It  may  easily,  therefore,  assert  itself 
strongly  in  the  consciousness  at  the  moment  when  the  new  choice 
is  made ;  if  not  it  will  reveal  itself  afterwards  in  the  new  life. 
The  converted  man  may  be  unable  to  identify  the  precise  mo¬ 
ment  when  the  new  choice  was  made,  on  account  of  mistaking 
occasional  incidents  of  the  choice  for  its  essentials,  mistaking 
the  real  character  of  his  own  experience. 

If,  through  the  instruction  and  loving  Christian  nurture  of 
parents  and  the  influence  of  God’s  spirit,  the  child’s  first  moral 
choice  is  right,  he  has  the  same  inadequate  conception  of  its  sig¬ 
nificance,  and  is  at  the  time  scarcely  conscious  of  it  as  a  su¬ 
preme  and  dominant  choice.  As,  when  the  first  moral  choice  is 
wrong,  the  child  simply  continues  to  follow  his  natural  impulses, — 
so,  when  it  is  right,  it  is  accordant  with  the  impulses  and  motives 
of  the  newly-awakening  moral  and  spiritual  powers,  and  continues 
its  supremacy,  sustained  by  them.  Thus  it  acts  with  the  sponta¬ 
neity  and  continuity  of  a  constitutional  affection.  The  child  is 
scarcely  conscious  of  it  as  a  deliberate  choice  or  purpose  to  do 
duty,  but  rather  as  his  spontaneous  acting-out  of  his  inmost  dis¬ 
position.  He  becomes  conscious  of  it  as  a  deliberate  choice  or 
self-directing  purpose  mainly  in  resisting  temptation  to  sin  and 
in  surmounting  obstacles  and  opposition  from  within  or  without 
to  doing  right.  So  Joseph  said  :  “  How  can  I  do  this  great 
wickedness  and  sin  against  God?”  And  Nehemiah  said:  “So 
did  not  I,  because  of  the  fear  of  God.”  1  This  world  is  God’s 

1  Gen.  xxxix.  9;  Neh.  v.  15. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  I  1 5 


school  for  discipline,  education,  and  development ;  and  the  pro¬ 
bation  inseparable  therefrom  comes  inevitably  on  every  person 
who  is  born  into  the  world  and  becomes  a  moral  agent  in  it.  If 
the  child  who  has  made  his  first  moral  choice  right,  advancing  to 
maturity,  overcomes  all  opposition  to  right-doing,  surmounts  all 
difficulties,  resists  all  temptations,  sometimes  is  overpowered  and 
yields,  yet  through  God’s  grace  recovers  himself  and  returns  to 
God,  he  becomes  more  and  more  aware  of  his  own  personal 
powers,  duties,  and  privileges,  and  of  his  relations  to  God  and 
man  in  the  moral  system,  and  thus  his  love  to  God  and  to  his 
neighbor  as  himself  becomes  more  and  more  intelligent  and 
steadfast. 

2.  In  the  development  and  confirmation  of  character  the 
choices  themselves  exert  a  protensive  influence,  that  is,  an  influ¬ 
ence  reaching  forward  in  time,  on  subsequent  determinations  and 
actions. 

This  must  be  so,  because  a  choice,  while  always  free  determina¬ 
tion,  is  also  abiding.  It  constitutes  character.  As  such  it  throws 
forward  a  continuous  influence  on  subsequent  determinations. 
It  has  been  shown  that  a  man,  in  his  volitional  exertion  of  power, 
does  not  make  a  complete  self-determination,  but  only  expresses 
a  determination  already  made  in  a  choice.  The  choice  directs 
the  energies  to  their  object.  The  choice,  therefore,  as  character 
more  or  less  abiding,  exerts  an  influence  forward  on  action,  analo¬ 
gous  to  that  of  a  constitutional  motive.  The  character  is  con¬ 
tinually  expressing  itself  in  action. 

The  same  must  be  true  because  a  choice  implies  spontaneity 
of  action.  The  action  is  not  by  constraint  but  from  choice.  The 
person  does  spontaneously  what  he  desires  to  do.  While  choice 
is  continuous  and  free,  so  long  as  it  is  the  person’s  choice,  it  is 
his  own  elective  preference.  Thus  its  influence  on  the  action 
is  analogous  to  that  of  a  natural  affection  or  any  constitutional 
motive.  It  may  be  called  an  affection  of  the  spirit  analogous 
to  the  instinctive  natural  affections,  —  the  former  are  the  free 
choice  of  the  spirit,  the  latter  are  constitutional  impulses  or  affec¬ 
tions.  Man  on  his  spiritual  side  creates  his  own  affections.  The 
love  which  the  spirit  exercises  is  the  free  choice  of  a  person  as 
the  object  of  trust  and  service. 

In  both  these  ways  moral  character  in  its  primary  meaning 
throws  an  influence  forward  on  all  action  and  tends  to  perpetuate 


Il6  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

itself.  The  supreme  choice  directs  all  the  energies  to  its  chosen 
object  and  expresses  itself  in  the  subordinate  choices  and  the 
volitional  action.  The  subordinate  choices  direct  the  energies 
to  the  acquisition,  possession,  and  use  of  objects  in  the  line  of 
the  supreme  choice.  And  the  volitional  action  forms  habits  in 
the  same  line  and  so  confirms  the  character.  So  long,  therefore, 
as  a  man  continues  to  choose  an  object,  his  choices  exert  a  pro- 
tensive  influence  to  induce  action  in  accordance  with  themselves, 
and  so  to  perpetuate  and  confirm  the  character. 

3.  Character  is  developed  and  confirmed  by  its  reaction  on 
the  constitutional  motives,  eliciting  or  suppressing,  intensifying 
or  stupefying,  regulating  and  modifying  them. 

The  question  has  been  often  asked  whether  the  will  has  any 
power  to  elicit,  modify,  or  determine  the  motives  influencing  it. 
To  the  determinist,  believing  that  the  motive  causes  the  deter¬ 
minations  of  the  will,  this  question  is  of  vital  moment ;  because 
to  him  the  only  remaining  possibility  of  any  moral  freedom  is  in 
some  supposed  power  of  the  will  over  the  motives.  But  the  sup¬ 
position  would  be  for  him  the  absurdity  that  an  effect  causes  its 
own  cause.  The  true  psychological  definition  shows  clearly  that 
moral  character  reacts  on  the  motives,  and  explains  the  manner 
and  extent  of  the  reaction.  It  has  been  shown  that  choice,  in  its 
continuity  and  spontaneity  as  character,  exerts  a  protensive  influ¬ 
ence,  analogous  to  the  motive  influence  of  the  constitutional  de¬ 
sires  and  affections.  We  are  now  to  consider  the  fact  that  choice, 
as  moral  character  in  its  primary  meaning,  reacts  on  the  appe¬ 
tites,  desires,  and  affections  themselves,  and  on  all  other  consti¬ 
tutional  susceptibilities  which  are  motives  to  action,  and  elicits 
or  suppresses,  intensifies  or  stupefies,  modifies  and  regulates 
them. 

This  fact  was  noticed  in  the  discussion  of  moral  character  in 
its  secondary  meaning.  The  supreme  choice  may  intensify  a 
natural  propensity  or  desire ;  and  then  is  itself  strengthened  by 
the  person’s  continued  action  under  the  morbid  intensity  which 
by  his  own  free  choice  he  has  created.  In  this  way  a  natural 
propensity  may  be  strengthened  into  a  ruling  passion  to  which 
the  gratification  of  all  other  desires  may  be  sacrificed.  For  ex¬ 
ample,  acquisitiveness  is  a  natural  propensity.  When  one,  who 
chooses  self  as  his  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service,  has  chosen 
wealth  as  the  object  to  be  acquired,  possessed,  and  used  as  his 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  1 1 7 


chief  good,  for  his  selfish  gratification,  then  his  selfishness  enters 
like  a  demon  into  this  innocent  natural  propensity  and  infuriates 
it  into  the  ruling  passion.  He  concentrates  all  his  energies  on 
its  gratification  and  spares  himself  no  sacrifice  or  self-denial  to 
gain  the  wealth  desired.  If  it  takes  the  less  common  form  of  the 
desire  of  hoarding,  the  miser  surpasses  all  other  ascetics  in  the 
rigor  of  his  self-denial.  If  the  selfish  person  seeks  his  gratifica¬ 
tion  or  highest  enjoyment  in  sensual  indulgence,  the  appetite, 
fevered  by  continued  stimulus  and  maddened  by  the  selfishness 
which  has  entered  into  it,  overmasters  all  other  motives,  takes 
possession  of  the  man,  and  draws  him  all  his  life  long  in  the 
slough  of  sensuality.  A  brute,  unless  perverted  by  human  train¬ 
ing,  never  has  a  ruling  passion.  Its  instincts  are  equally  devel¬ 
oped  according  to  the  law  of  its  being.  In  man,  under  the 
stimulus  given  by  his  own  free  will,  any  appetite  or  desire  may 
blaze  up  and  wrap  the  whole  being  in  its  flame.  But  it  can  do 
this  only  if  the  person  of  his  own  free  will  stimulates  it  to  mastery 
and  makes  himself  its  slave.  In  further  exemplification  of  the 
reaction  of  character  on  the  constitutional  motives  another  im¬ 
portant  fact  should  be  mentioned.  By  a  life  of  sin  the  moral 
and  spiritual  susceptibilities  are  deadened,  and  the  moral  and 
spiritual  discernment  dulled.  But  when,  under  the  gracious  draw¬ 
ing  of  God’s  Spirit,  the  sinner  returns  to  God  and  so  renounces 
self  as  his  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service,  then  his  moral 
and  spiritual  susceptibilities  have  been  awakened,  and  by  his  own 
free  choice  he  has  determined  in  accordance  with  them.  Then 
the  new  choice  in  harmony  with  these  motives  reacts  on  them 
with  a  heavenly,  vitalizing,  and  invigorating  influence,  and  they 
are  gradually  developed  to  their  normal  strength.  Thus  a  per¬ 
son’s  free  choice,  whether  right  or  wrong,  reacts  on  his  motives 
and  develops  them  more  and  more  in  accord  with  itself. 

4.  It  follows  from  what  has  now  been  established  that  a  person 
is  able  by  his  free  choice  to  determine  to  a  great  extent  the 
sources  of  his  happiness  and  of  his  interest  in  life,  and  thus  the 
influence  of  his  environment  upon  him. 

The  sources  of  possible  enjoyment  and  of  interest  in  life  are  de¬ 
termined  for  every  creature  by  its  constitution.  A  brute  can  have 
only  those  enjoyments  of  which  its  organization  makes  it  capable. 
A  lamb  cannot  find  pleasure  in  ravening  in  blood,  nor  a  tiger  in 
eating  grass.  And  from  the  infusoria  through  all  the  ascending 


I  1 8  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

grades  to  the  most  intelligent  dog,  the  greater  and  more  varied 
the  powers  of  the  organism,  the  greater  and  more  varied  are  its 
sources  of  enjoyment.  Man  is,  like  the  brute,  limited  by  his  con¬ 
stitution.  But  to  him,  endowed  with  reason  and  free-will,  are 
opened  also  the  sources  of  enjoyment  in  the  sphere  of  personality  ; 
and  his  environment  is  not  merely,  like  that  of  the  brute,  the  phy¬ 
sical  system,  but  also  the  spiritual  system  in  which  he  is  related  to 
God  and  all  personal  beings  under  the  universal  law  of  love.  He 
has  in  common  with  the  brute  the  pleasures  of  sense  and  the  en¬ 
joyment  of  natural  affections  and  desires.  He  is  capable,  as  the 
brute  is  not,  of  joy  in  wickedness,  in  the  worldly  and  the  devilish. 
He  is  capable  also  of  blessedness  in  the  exercise  of  love  like  that 
of  Christ.  In  this  wide  range  and  variety  of  sources  of  happiness, 
many  of  them  conflicting  and  incompatible,  he  is  able  to  choose 
the  objects  or  ends  of  his  action.  Thus,  while  the  ends  of  a 
brute’s  action  and  the  sources  of  its  enjoyment  are  determined 
for  it  entirely  in  its  nature,  the  ends  of  man’s  action  and  the 
sources  of  his  happiness  are  largely  determined  by  him  in  his 
own  free  choice. 

Parental  affection  is  from  the  beginning  potential  but  inactive 
in  the  constitution  of  man.  At  the  birth  of  the  first-born,  it 
awakens  and  reveals  itself  in  the  consciousness.  It  opens  to  the 
parent  new  sources  of  enjoyment,  new  interests  in  life,  new  ob¬ 
jects  of  action,  a  new  sphere  of  enterprise  and  energy,  a  new 
world  in  which  to  live.  The  birth  of  the  child  is  a  new  birth  of 
the  parent.  In  like  manner,  every  natural  appetite,  desire,  and 
affection  opens  its  own  peculiar  sphere  of  interest  and  action. 
Each  has  its  own  peculiar  object,  and  thus  is  a  source  of  enjoy¬ 
ment  peculiar  to  itself.  Without  some  appetite,  desire,  or  affec¬ 
tion  fastening  on  the  object,  the  person  would  be  incapable  of 
enjoyment  or  interest  in  it.  One  cannot  enjoy  eating  unless  he 
has  an  appetite  for  food.  Thus  man  is  many-sided.  In  these 
various  and  multiplied  susceptibilities,  he  comes  in  contact  with 
his  environment  at  many  points,  and  feels  it  and  therein  feels 
himself  on  many  sides.  He  feels  his  own  many-sided  life  in  con¬ 
tact  with  his  environment.  Poor,  indeed,  would  a  man’s  life  be, 
little  would  he  be  aware  of  his  many  powers  and  capacities,  little 
would  be  his  interest  in  life  and  the  stimulus  to  exertion,  if  he 
were  susceptible  of  only  one  motive,  the  desire  of  happiness  in 
the  abstract. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  I  19 


Here,  from  a  new  point  of  view,  we  see  the  analogy  of  a  free 
choice  in  its  spontaneity  with  a  natural  desire  or  affection.  Every 
new  choice,  fixing  the  preference  on  some  object,  opens  a  new 
source  of  enjoyment  and  of  interest  in  life.  One  travels  abroad, 
visits  the  great  galleries,  educates  and  develops  his  aesthetic  taste, 
or  he  engages  in  business,  or  he  identifies  himself  with  a  political 
party,  or  he  devotes  himself  to  some  enterprise  of  moral  reform. 
In  each  case  he  opens  to  himself  new  sources  of  enjoyment  and  of 
interest  in  life,  a  new  sphere  of  enterprise,  a  new  world  in  which 
to  expatiate.  He  is  like  an  organ  with  many  stops,  which  he 
opens  and  closes  at  will. 

In  addition  to  this,  a  man  in  the  exercise  of  his  free  will 
wakens  or  suppresses,  intensifies  or  deadens,  modifies  or  regu¬ 
lates,  his  natural  appetites,  desires,  and  affections.  So  far  as  he 
does  this,  he  opens  or  closes  sources  of  happiness  and  interest  in 
life.  He  may  shut  himself  up  for  his  enjoyment  to  a  supine  life 
of  sensuous  luxury  and  self-indulgence,  like  the  three  Apicii.  He 
may  make  himself  capable  of  enjoyment  in  “  plain  living  and 
high  thinking,”  —  like  President  Edwards,  living  among  the  In¬ 
dians  in  Stockbridge,  to  whom  he  was  a  missionary,  and  where 
he  often  was  without  the  common  necessaries  of  life,  and  there 
writing  some  of  the  philosophical  works  which  have  made  him 
famous,  and  yet  so  attached  to  the  Indians  and  his  work  among 
them  that  he  shed  tears  on  leaving  them  to  become  President  of 
the  college  at  Princeton.1 

1  Dr.  Samuel  Hopkins  is  another  example  of  the  simplicity  of  life  of  the 
earlier  eminent  divines  of  New  England,  and  their  contentedness  in  it 
through  the  elevation  of  their  thought  and  their  earnestness  in  their  work. 
His  earlier  ministry  was  in  a  small  frontier  parish  of  some  thirty  families, 
where  he  lived  in  poverty.  He  was,  says  a  biographer,  “very  temperate  in 
his  diet,  breakfasting  and  supping  on  bread  and  milk,  from  a  bowl  contain¬ 
ing  about  three  gills,  never  varying  from  that  quantity.’'  A  later  biographer 
in  a  recent  public  address  quoted  from  an  original  letter  in  his  possession, 
written  in  Salem,  certainly  not  at  that  time  a  city  given  to  luxurious  living  : 
“  I  find  the  ministers  around  Salem  and  in  the  eastern  part  of  Massachusetts 
are  great  eaters  and  drinkers.  They  drink  cider ;  and  I  must  say  they 
are  awfully  sunken  creatures.”  Dr.  Channing  says  of  him :  “  He  was  an 
illustration  of  the  power  of  our  spiritual  nature.  In  narrow  circumstances, 
with  few  outward  indulgences,  in  great  seclusion,  he  yet  found  much  to  en¬ 
joy.  He  lived  in  a  world  of  thought  above  all  earthly  passions.  ...  It  has 
been  my  privilege  to  meet  with  other  examples  of  the  same  character,  — with 
men  who,  amid  privation,  under  bodily  infirmity,  and  with  none  of  those 
materials  for  enjoyment  which  the  multitude  are  striving  for,  live  in  a  world 


120  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


When  one  choice  or  one  natural  desire  or  affection  is  contrary 
to  another  and  incompatible  with  it,  if  the  first  is  in  possession 
and  mastery  of  the  soul,  the  second  can  become  a  source  of  en¬ 
joyment  only  by  extruding  the  first.  Ye  cannot  serve  God  and 
Mammon.  A  miser  bent  on  hoarding,  or  a  covetous  person  bent 
on  selfish  acquisition,  cannot  comprehend  how  there  can  be  any 
enjoyment  in  Howard’s  benevolent  expenditure.  To  him  there  is 
no  good  in  it ;  the  very  thought  of  it  pains  and  repels  him.  So 
long  as  a  person  prefers  anything  to  its  contrary  he  cannot  see 
that  the  contrary  is  a  good  or  in  any  way  desirable.  A  sinner 
chooses  as  good  what  is  really  evil.  So  long  as  he  prefers  it  to  its 
contrary,  he  regards  it  as  his  good  and  its  contrary  as  evil.  This 
blindness  is  recognized  by  Christ,  “  Except  a  man  be  born  anew 
he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God.”  He  cannot  even  see  it.  Till 
he  chooses  God  in  the  new  love,  he  does  not  see  the  kingdom  of 
God  as  the  sum  of  all  that  is  true  and  right  and  perfect  and  good 
for  man ;  he  sees  it  rather  as  the  embodiment  of  evil.  He  is 
repelled  from  it ;  he  is  in  antagonism  to  it.  Thus  he  falls  under 
the  woe  of  the  prophet :  “  Woe  unto  them  that  call  evil  good,  and 
good  evil ;  that  put  darkness  for  light,  and  light  for  darkness.” 
Milton  represents  Satan  as  discovering  this,  when  in  despair  he 
cries,  “  All  good  to  me  is  lost ;  evil,  be  thou  my  good.”  This 
necessity  of  expelling  the  old  and  sinful  choice  or  affection  by  the 
new,  our  Saviour  illustrates  by  the  parable  of  the  strong  man 
armed  keeping  his  goods  securely  in  his  house  until  a  stronger 
than  he  comes  and  dispossesses  him. 

So  long  as  a  person  continues  in  a  choice  or  preference,  he  is 
shut  up  by  it  to  its  object  as  the  source  of  his  enjoyment  to  the 
exclusion  of  its  opposite.  The  opposite  may  be  really  the  true 
good  ;  but  he  does  not  choose  it.  He  prefers  the  contrary  ;  and 
to  it  he  is  shut  up  by  his  choice  as  his  good.  When  Christianity 
was  introduced  into  the  Netherlands,  a  Friesland  chief  came  to  the 
missionary  to  be  baptized.  But  when  the  spiritual  character  of 
the  Christian  heaven  was  explained  to  him,  he  was  incapable  of 
seeing  any  good  in  it,  and  went  away  saying  in  disgust,  “  I  would 

of  thought  and  enjoy  what  affluence  never  dreamed  of,  —  men  having  nothing 
and  yet  possessing  all  things,  —  and  the  sight  of  such  has  done  me  more 
good,  has  spoken  more  to  my  head  and  heart,  than  many  sermons  and 
volumes.  I  have  learned  the  sufficiency  of  the  mind  for  itself,  its  inde¬ 
pendence  of  outward  things.”  (Works,  vol.  iv.  pp.  352,  353.) 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  12 1 


rather  feast  with  my  ancestors  in  the  halls  of  Odin  than  live  for¬ 
ever  in  your  starveling  Christian  heaven.”  Herodias  had  the 
offer  of  whatever  she  would  choose,  to  the  half  of  the  kingdom. 
And  all  the  good  which  her  revengeful  hate  permitted  her  to  see 
in  that  large  offer  was  the  bloody  head  of  the  prophet  who  had 
rebuked  her  for  her  sin.  Nero  had  the  whole  western  world  at 
his  command  to  suck  its  sweetness  as  one  would  suck  an  orange. 
And  all  the  enjoyment  which  his  character  made  it  possible  for 
him  to  find  in  it  were  the  bestial  pleasures  of  sensuality,  the 
ghastly  joy  of  cruelty,  and  the  joy  of  an  immeasurable  vanity  and 
self-conceit.  Satan  cheats  men  with  the  offer  of  all  the  kingdoms 
of  the  world  and  the  glory  of  them  ;  but  never  tells  them  that  all 
the  joys  which  they  can  get  therefrom  are  only  those  which  their 
own  selfish  preferences  and  desires  can  absorb  in  their  stinted 
measure  and  saturate  with  their  own  vileness.  Thus  a  sinner  is 
shut  up  to  the  objects  of  his  own  choice  and  desire  as  the  sources 
of  his  happiness.  Hence  a  selfish  person  remaining  such  would 
be  miserable  in  heaven,  for  all  that  life  is  love.  It  is  not  so 
much  that  a  sinner  is  cast  out  of  heaven,  as  that  he  casts  heaven 
out  of  himself  by  the  selfishness  which  excludes  the  love  which 
constitutes  the  life  and  blessedness  of  heaven.  It  is  not  so 
much  that  the  sinner  is  cast  into  hell,  as  that,  by  his  self-sufficiency, 
self-will,  self-seeking,  and  self-glorifying,  he  kindles  the  fire  of  hell 
in  his  own  soul.  There  is,  therefore,  a  true  philosophy  in  the  words 
which  Milton  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Satan  in  his  address  to  the  sun  : 

“  Me  miserable !  which  way  shall  I  fly 
Infinite  wrath  and  infinite  despair  ? 

Which  way  I  fly  is  hell ;  myself  am  hell ; 

And  in  the  lowest  deep  a  lower  deep 
Still  threatening  to  devour  me  opens  wide, 

To  which  the  hell  I  suffer  is  a  heaven.” 

Since,  then,  every  new  affection  and  every  new  choice  opens  new 
sources  of  enjoyment,  and  of  interest  in  life,  how  great  must  be 
the  change  when  a  sinner  under  the  drawing  of  God’s  Spirit  re¬ 
nounces  self  and  chooses  God  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and 
service  !  What  new  sources  of  joy  are  opened,  what  a  new  world 
in  which  to  expatiate  !  Under  the  reign  of  selfishness,  the  whole 
horizon  of  his  life,  action,  and  interest  encompassed  only  what  he 
could  grasp  within  his  own  arms  and  hug  to  his  own  bosom.  But 
when  the  love  of  God  and  man  begins,  that  little  firmament 


122  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


bursts  and  the  real  heavens  appear  opening  on  and  up  to  God ; 
that  little  horizon  expands  and  the  sphere  of  his  interest,  enter¬ 
prise,  and  joy  is  wide  as  the  reign  of  God’s  righteousness,  the 
kingdom  of  his  redeeming  grace.  He  is  interested  in  all  whom 
God  in  Christ  loves  and,  in  advancing  his  kingdom  of  redemption, 
is  a  worker  together  with  God.  This  change  may  be  called 
emphatically  the  new  birth,  the  entrance  into  a  new  life.  The 
man  is  born  of  God.  How  paltry  then  the  objects  of  his  former 
pursuit,  the  sources  of  his  former  joys,  appear.  He  says  with 
Paul :  “  What  things  were  gain  to  me,  these  I  have  counted  loss 
for  Christ.” 

Thus  man  by  his  own  free  choice  determines  the  sources  of  his 
enjoyment  and  of  his  interest  in  life.  He  determines  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  his  environment  upon  him.  He  may  almost  be  said  to 
create  for  himself,  by  God’s  grace,  a  new  world  in  which  he  lives, 
by  the  direction  he  gives  to  his  love. 

It  is  a  common  saying  that  a  guilty  conscience  makes  a  man  a 
coward.  It  even  finds  terrors  in  harmless  things.  The  fleeing 
thief  thinks  “  each  bush  an  officer.”  It  is  an  ancient  story  that 
Ibycus,  dying  under  the  hands  of  murderers,  appealed  to  some 
cranes,  the  only  witnesses  of  the  crime,  to  avenge  him ;  and  that 
the  murderers  were  detected  because,  when  in  a  theatre,  seeing 
cranes  flying  over,  one  of  them  exclaimed,  u  The  cranes  of 
Ibycus  !  ”  probably  thinking  they  had  come  to  accuse  them  of 
their  crime.  The  murderer  sees  unearthly  apparitions  created  by 
his  own  conscious  guilt. 

“  The  fiends  in  his  own  bosom  fill  the  air 
With  kindred  fiends  that  drive  him  to  despair.” 

But  the  thought  which  I  have  been  presenting  is  more  than  this. 
It  is  that  the  real  impression  made  on  a  person  by  his  real  en¬ 
vironment  is  largely  determined  by  his  own  choices,  desires,  and 
affections.  The  change  in  his  receptiveness  within  effects  a  cor¬ 
responding  change  in  the  impressions  received  from  without. 
Nature  smiles  with  the  cheerful  and  glooms  with  the  sorrowful. 
Her  beauties  are  hidden  from  the  anxious  and  perturbed  spirit. 
“  All  is  marvelous  for  the  poet ;  all  is  divine  for  the  saint ;  all  is 
great  for  the  hero ;  all  is  wretched,  miserable,  ugly,  and  bad  for 
the  base  and  sordid  soul.”  1  The  heroic  spirit  is  stimulated  by 
obstacles,  opposition  and  danger.  Because  “  there  are  many  ad- 

1  Amiel’s  Journal,  Feb.  5,  1853. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  123 


versaries,”  Paul  stays  in  Ephesus.  Joshua  and  Caleb  did  not  see 
in  Canaan  the  Anaks  and  the  impregnable  cities  which  filled  the 
eyes  of  their  less  courageous  companions.  A  woman  coming 
from  her  room  in  the  morning  in  the  first  joy  of  her  new-found 
hope  in  Christ  exclaimed,  as  she  looked  through  the  window  into 
the  sunshine,  that  the  very  chips  in  the  yard  seemed  to  be  prais¬ 
ing  God.  The  new  heart  of  trust  and  love  is  enough  of  itself  to 
create  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth. 

Persons  sometimes  excuse  their  wrong-doing  on  account  of  the 
violence  of  temptation.  But  there  is  a  question  back  of  that : 
Plow  came  they  to  be  subject  to  the  temptation?  Why  are 
the  doors  open  to  the  entrance  of  temptation  on  that  side  of  their 
being  and  closed  on  the  other?  One  comes  to  an  opening  in 
the  side-walk  descending  to  a  room  whence  issue  the  voices  of 
profaneness  and  ribaldry  and  the  smell  of  intoxicating  drink ; 
and  the  temptation  is  so  strong  he  cannot  resist.  The  next 
person  passing  it  is  disgusted,  and  flees  from  it  as  from  a  by-way 
to  hell.  John  Eliot  was  sorely  tempted  to  extravagant  benefi¬ 
cence.  Once  when  paying  him  a  part  of  his  salary,  the  treasurer 

tied  up  the  money  in  a  handkerchief  with  many  hard  knots,  so 
that  he  might  not  give  any  of  it  away  before  reaching  home. 

But  on  his  way  Eliot  called  on  a  poor  widow  who  was  ill ;  and 

as  he  was  leaving  proposed  to  give  her  some  of  the  money  for  her 
immediate  needs.  But  finding  himself  unable,  after  all  his  efforts, 
to  untie  the  knots,  he  gave  it  to  her  handkerchief  and  all,  ex¬ 
claiming,  “  I  see  that  Providence  evidently  intended  you  should 
have  the  whole.”  Why  was  the  temptation  to  beneficence  so 
irresistible  to  him,  and  the  temptation  to  profligacy  and  squan¬ 
dering  in  self-indulgence  so  irresistible  to  another?  Thus  a 
person  is  to  a  great  degree  responsible  for  being  tempted.  We 
get  a  deep  insight  into  a  person’s  character  when  we  know  what 
his  great  temptations  are. 

5.  The  development  of  right  character  issues  in  spontaneity 
of  action,  excluding  the  consciousness  of  constraint  and  restraint. 
In  this  development  a  person  starts  from  the  spontaneity  of 
nature  and  issues  in  the  spontaneity  of  free  choice.  In  this 
choice  he  determines  or  directs  all  his  energies  to  a  person  or 
persons  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service.  This  self- 
direction  or  self-devotement  persists,  not  merely  as  an  intention 
or  purpose  commanding  reluctant  trust  and  service,  but  as  a  free 


124  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


choice  or  preference  making  the  trust  and  service  free  and  spon¬ 
taneous.  This  self-devoting  free  choice  or  preference  is  the 
moral  or  spiritual  love  as  distinguished  from  a  natural  affection 
or  disposition.  When  the  character  is  perfected,  the  action 
which  expresses  this  love  is  as  free  from  conscious  constraint  or 
restraint,  is  as  completely  spontaneous,  as  is  the  action  under 
the  impulse  of  an  instinctive  affection  or  desire.  This  is  com¬ 
monly  expressed  by  saying  that  the  character  has  become  a 
second  nature.  It  is  what  in  ethical  philosophy  is  called  Real 
Freedom,  in  distinction  from  the  freedom  of  the  will  essential  to 
moral  responsibility  and  character.  It  is  “  the  liberty  wherewith 
Christ  hath  made  us  free  ”  (Gal.  v.  i).  “If  the  Son  shall  make 
you  free,  ye  shall  be  free  indeed  ”  (oVtws,  in  reality,  John  viii.  36). 
In  this  perfect  conformity  of  character  and  action  with  the 
law  in  willing  obedience,  the  law  itself  is  seen  to  be  “  the  perfect 
law  of  liberty  ”  (James  i.  25  ;  ii.  12).  Accordingly  it  is  true  of 
the  child  of  God  that  “  his  delight  is  in  the  law  of  the  Lord.” 
“  O  how  love  I  thy  law  !  It  is  my  meditation  all  the  day.” 
“  I  delight  to  do  thy  will,  O  my  God ;  yea,  thy  law  is  within 
my  heart.”  Thus  God’s  covenant  with  those  who  devote  their 
lives  to  him  in  loving  trust  and  service  is  fulfilled,  “  I  will  put 
my  law  in  their  inward  parts  and  write  it  in  their  hearts  ”  (Psalm 
i.  2;  cxix.  97;  xl.  8;  Jerem.  xxxi.  33). 

That  this  must  be  so  is  a  necessary  inference  from  the  descrip¬ 
tion  of  character  and  its  development  already  given. 

The  development  of  a  right  character  must  issue  in  the  com¬ 
plete  spontaneity  of  love  to  God  as  supreme  and  to  one’s  neigh¬ 
bor  as  himself.  When  the  supreme  choice  has  gained  its  full 
mastery  by  resisting  and  overcoming  evil  and  the  subordinate 
choices  and  the  volitional  action  are  in  harmony  with  it,  —  when 
the  choices,  by  reacting  on  the  natural  appetites,  desires,  and 
affections,  intensifying  the  torpid  and  reducing  the  excessive, 
have  brought  them  all  to  their  normal  strength  in  subordination 
to  the  supreme  choice,  and  thus  into  harmony  with  one  another,  — 
when  thus  man  has  opened  to  himself  all  the  true  sources  of 
enjoyment  and  interest  in  life  and  quenched  all  desire  for  those 
which  are  illusive,  —  then  all  the  energies  and  susceptibilities  of 
his  being  move  in  harmony  with  his  supreme  choice  and  with 
each  other ;  all,  like  tributary  streams,  flow  into  and  swell  the 
deep  and  strong  current  of  his  love. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  1 25 


This  is  real  freedom.1  The  carrying-out  of  his  love  into  action 
is  hindered  by  nothing  within  himself ;  all  his  powers  and  suscep¬ 
tibilities  are  penetrated,  vitalized,  and  harmonized  by  love.  He 
is  in  harmony  with  God,  following  joyfully  the  drawings  of  his 
spirit  and  delighting  to  do  his  will.  He  is  in  harmony  with  the 
universe,  and  all  its  agencies  help  and  serve  him  ;  all  things  work 
together  for  his  good.  Fear  is  cast  out  by  perfect  love.  The 
sense  of  duty  waits  in  the  background,  always  anticipated  by  love, 
which  waits  not  for  the  categoric  imperative  of  the  law.  The 
love  is  like  the  motor  force  in  machinery ;  the  sense  of  duty  is 
the  great  balance-wheel,  perpetuating  the  motion  if  the  moving 
force  slackens.  But  in  the  perfected  character  there  is  no  occa¬ 
sion  for  it  to  assert  itself  in  the  consciousness,  for  love  always 
gets  the  start  of  it.  A  spirit  thus  perfected  in  love  has  changed, 
as  it  were,  its  centre  of  gravity ;  it  gravitates  upward  toward  God. 
It  says  with  the  angels  : 

“  In  our  proper  motion  we  ascend 
Up  to  our  native  seat;  descent  and  fall 
To  us  is  adverse. ” 

All  right  action  becomes  spontaneous  and  unconscious  like  the 
processes  of  life. 

’T  is  as  easy  now  for  the  heart  to  be  true 

As  for  the  grass  to  be  green  or  the  sky  to  be  blue; 

’T  is  the  natural  way  of  living.  —  Lowell. 

Both  in  the  body  and  the  spirit  the  healthy  processes  of  life  go 
on  in  unconsciousness.  The  healthy  have  no  consciousness  of 
the  circulation  of  the  blood  ;  only  when  ill  does  one  feel  his 
pulse.  Like  the  life-blood,  love  flows  through  the  whole  spiritual 
being,  vitalizing,  organizing,  developing  it  and  bringing  all  into 
harmony  under  the  power  of  love  ;  and  so  spontaneously  that  it 
does  not  attract  the  person’s  attention  to  himself.  Thus  are 
Christ’s  words  found  to  be  true,  “  My  yoke  is  easy  and  my 
burden  is  light  ”  ;  and  in  exerting  our  utmost  energy  in  doing 
his  work  we  find  rest.  Thus  is  fulfilled  God’s  promise  of  the 
new  covenant :  “  I  will  put  my  law  in  their  inward  parts  and 
in  their  heart  will  I  write  it.” 

This  spontaneity  of  real  freedom  is  compatible  with  free  will. 
This  has  been  denied  by  eminent  theologians  at  different  periods 

1  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  pp  386-389. 


126  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


in  the  history  of  the  church.  It  has  been  maintained  that  when 
a  person  has  attained  this  complete  development  of  character, 
when  he  does  right  in  the  spontaneity  of  perfect  love,  and  his 
character  has  become  a  second  nature,  then  he  ceases  to  be 
a  free  agent  and  thenceforward  acts  under  necessity.  Rothe 
says  that  if  such  a  character  should  be  formed,  the  person  would 
have  taken  a  fate  into  his  will.  It  has  been  said  :  “  The  high¬ 
est  and  the  perfect  state  of  the  will  is  a  state  of  necessity ;  and 
the  power  of  choice,  so  far  from  being  essential  to  a  true  and 
genuine  will,  is  its  weakness.”  Then  virtue  in  the  heavenly  state 
could  be  no  virtue,  because  it  had  ceased  to  require  effort  and 
choice.1  This  error  can  arise  only  from  the  conception  that  the 
only  freedom  of  the  will  is  the  freedom  of  indifference  and  its 
only  function  is  isolated  ictic  volition.  It  implies  that  after  every 
volition  the  will,  in  order  to  remain  free,  must  return  to  entire 
indifference  as  between  right  and  wrong  or  any  objects  of  choice, 
and  so  must  remain  always  characterless.  It  implies  that  if 
a  person  has  acquired  a  character  having  influence  on  subsequent 
action,  he  has  impaired  his  freedom ;  and  should  he  have  de¬ 
veloped  his  character  to  perfect  love  he  would  have  destroyed 
the  essential  powers  and  susceptibilities  of  his  personality  by 
which  he  is  constituted  a  free  responsible  agent.  But  according 
to  the  true  definition  of  the  will  and  its  freedom,  moral  character 
is,  in  its  primary  meaning,  a  continuous  free  choice,  and  every 
element  of  personality  and  free  agency  exists  unimpaired  in  the 
most  completely  developed  character  and  its  most  entire  spon¬ 
taneity.  This  so-called  second  nature  cannot  be  incompatible 
with  freedom  and  personality,  for  it  is  itself  the  free  choice  by 
which,  resisting  and  overcoming  all  opposition,  the  free  spirit  in 
man  has  vitalized,  organized,  and  unified  all  his  powers  and  sus¬ 
ceptibilities  in  the  spiritual  life  of  love, — has  advanced,  without 
losing  the  moral  freedom  which  is  the  basis  of  moral  responsibility, 
to  real  freedom  which  is  freedom  in  its  highest  perfection,  and 
has  acquired  complete  possession  and  command  of  his  whole 
being,  not  overmastering  it  by  conscious  intention  and  command, 

1  Kant  says :  “  Virtue  is  constantly  progressive,  and  yet  it  has  always  to 
begin  anew.  .  .  .  Were  the  exercise  of  virtue  to  become  habit,  the  agent 
would  thereby  lose  his  freedom  ”  (Metaphysics  of  Ethics,  Trans,  p.  216). 
But  because  he  recognizes  moral  character  as  of  the  will,  he  ought  to  say 
that  it  always  is  beginning  anew  in  the  continuity  of  free  choice ;  and  that 
its  spontaneity  and  continuity  are  always  in  freedom. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  1 27 


but  changing  it  in  the  deepest  springs  of  its  action  so  that  he  acts 
in  the  spontaneity  of  love. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  has  been  held  that  man  has  no  free  will  ex¬ 
cept  real  freedom.  Theologians  have  failed  to  note  the  distinction 
between  moral  freedom  and  real.  To  this  indefiniteness  of  thought 
respecting  what  constitutes  a  free  will  is  due  the  wide  prevalence 
of  the  doctrine  that  man  lost  his  free  will  in  the  Fall,  and  of  the 
preaching  that  a  sinner  has  no  more  power  to  repent  and  turn  to 
God  than  a  dead  man  has  to  rise  from  the  grave. 

The  correct  psychological  definition  of  free  vyill  and  of  moral 
responsibility  and  character  takes  away  all  foundation  from  both 
these  errors. 

In  the  spontaneity  of  real  freedom  a  person  attains  his  perfect 
moral  and  religious  character,  and  his  greatest  moral  and  spiritual 
power.  It  is  often  thought  that  moral  power  and  moral  merit 
are  greatest  when  there  is  most  consciousness  of  effort,  struggle, 
and  conflict  in  doing  right.  But  certainly  when  one,  with  the 
choice  between  right  and  wrong  before  him,  is  in  doubt  which  to 
choose,  and  can  resist  the  temptation  to  do  wrong  only  with  a 
painful  struggle,  his  will  must  be  weaker  in  its  determination, 
farther  from  being  perfected  in  right  character,  than  his  who  does 
not  hesitate  in  suspense  for  a  moment,  but  chooses  and  acts  right, 
not  only  without  the  consciousness  of  a  struggle,  but  with  delight. 
Canon  Mozley  says  the  merit  of  the  former  is  the  greater,  because 
with  a  weaker  will  and  a  greater  struggle  he  resisted  the  tempta¬ 
tion,  which  the  latter  did  not  even  feel.  But  the  contrary  is  true. 
Man’s  strength  of  will  and  insensibility  to  temptation  are  for  the 
most  part  the  result  of  his  own  continued  free  action.  The  one 
who  did  right  spontaneously  had  either  never  sunk  in  evil  so 
deeply  as  the  other,  or,  by  faithful  adherence  to  the  right  in  resist¬ 
ance  of  temptation,  he  had  already  developed  his  choice  of  God 
to  greater  strength  and  brought  all  his  lower  propensities  more 
into  subordination  to  it.  Therefore  he  has  both  the  stronger 
determination  of  will  and  the  greater  moral  merit  and  worth. 
If  we  deny  this,  we  must  suppose,  with  Canon  Mozley,1  that  the 
more  the  will  confirms  itself  in  the  right  choice,  the  more  it  loses 
its  freedom  and  falls  under  necessity,  and  therefore  the  less  its 
moral  merit  and  worth.  The  necessary  inference  must  be  that 
when  the  moral  character  becomes  perfected  in  real  freedom,  and 

1  The  Augustinian  Doctrine  of  Predestination,  pp.  63,  69. 


128  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


does  right  without  conscious  effort  in  the  spontaneity  of  perfect 
love,  it  will  cease  to  have  any  moral  character,  merit,  or  worth. 
But  it  is  evident  from  our  whole  course  of  thought,  that  excel¬ 
lence  of  moral  character,  moral  and  spiritual  power,  and  moral 
merit  and  worth  are  all  greatest  when,  through  the  full  develop¬ 
ment  of  love,  the  spontaneity  of  action  is  most  complete,  and  the 
consciousness  of  the  constraint  of  obligation  and  of  difficulties 
and  effort  in  the  action  is  least.  Happiness  in  one’s  work  is  a 
powerful  tonic.  Interest  and  enthusiasm  in  it  are  motor-forces  of 
immense  power.  In  such  enthusiasm  we  find  the  fulfilment  of 
God’s  promise  :  “  They  who  wait  upon  the  Lord  shall  renew  their 
strength  ;  they  shall  mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles ;  they  shall 
run  and  not  be  weary ;  they  shall  walk  and  not  faint.”  1 

Self-forgetfulness  accompanies  the  highest  energy  in  every 
sphere  of  action.  Spontaneity  of  action  is  a  mark  of  health.  It 
is  only  when  health  fails  that  one  feels  his  pulse  and  begins  to 
notice  the  action  of  his  vital  organs.  The  same  is  characteristic 
of  the  highest  energy.  In  the  mightiest  exertion  the  whole  thought 
concentrates  on  the  work,  in  self-forgetfulness.  It  is  a  mark  of 
the  highest  skill  acquired  by  training  and  education.  In  learning 
to  walk,  to  read  or  write,  to  use  a  tool,  to  play  on  a  piano,  the 
first  efforts  are  self-conscious,  painstaking,  and  laborious,  with 
many  mistakes  and  constant  revision,  correction  and  repetition. 
But  when  the  art  is  acquired,  the  action  becomes  spontaneous 
and  almost  automatic.  Self-forgetfulness  marks  also  the  greatest 
concentration  of  the  powers.  A  person  intently  studying  any 
subject  or  doing  any  nice  and  complicated  work  is  said  to  bury 
himself  or  to  lose  himself  in  what  he  is  doing.  The  same  spon¬ 
taneity  and  self-forgetfulness  appear  in  the  highest  excitement  of 
the  feelings,  in  courage,  hope,  enthusiasm.  So,  in  the  moral  and 
spiritual  life,  character  must  be  developed  by  discipline,  practice, 
training,  education,  with  introspection  and  revision,  with  many 
mistakes.  But  the  issue  of  the  development  must  be  in  the  self- 
forgetful  spontaneity  of  love.  Thus  a  man  has  his  highest  excel¬ 
lence  of  character  and  puts  forth  his  highest  moral  and  spiritual 
power  when,  in  the  spontaneity  of  love,  he  is  least  conscious  of 
himself  in  doing  it.  Accordingly  our  Lord  said  :  “  When  thou 
doest  alms,  let  not  thy  left  hand  know  what  thy  right  hand  doeth.” 
He  does  not  mean,  Keep  your  good  deeds  secret  from  others,  but, 

1  Isaiah  xl.  31. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  1 29 

Keep  them  secret  from  yourself,  by  the  greatness  of  the  love,  the 
enthusiasm  of  interest,  with  which  you  do  them. 

Here  is  the  significance  of  those  times  when  a  solemn  sense  of 
the  presence  and  power  of  the  unseen  and  spiritual  world  per¬ 
vades  a  whole  community,  —  of  those  lofty  flights  of  devotion, 
those  great  enthusiasms  for  humanity,  those  seasons  of  ecstatic 
communion  with  God  with  which  God  at  times  glorifies  the  life 
of  a  Christian.  In  our  mortal  bodies  we  cannot  continue  a  long 
time  on  these  exalted  planes  of  spiritual  life.  But  they  reveal  to 
men  the  divine  that  is  in  them,  and  the  reality  and  significance 
of  their  high  privilege  as  the  children  of  God.  As  a  dark  metal, 
set  on  fire  by  a  chemist,  becomes  luminous  as  it  burns,  and  by 
the  color  of  its  flame  reveals  through  the  spectroscope  its  likeness 
to  an  element  in  the  sun,  so  in  these  glowing  ecstasies  of  the 
spirit  which  sometimes  illuminate  man’s  earthly  life  we  see  his 
soul  aflame  with  the  glories  of  heaven  and  discover  his  likeness 
and  kinship  with  God.  In  these  the  Christian  gains  more  of  the 
love  which  is  the  life-force  of  the  spirit.  And  in  all  prayer, 
searching  the  scriptures,  meditation  on  divine  things,  a  man  is 
collecting  himself  for  his  spiritual  work,  opening  his  soul  to  receive 
God’s  love  which  feeds  the  springs  of  love  in  his  own  soul ;  and 
these  springs  of  love  flow  from  him  to  bless  the  world  with  the 
water  of  life. 

Therefore  real  freedom,  when  it  shall  be  attained,  is  not  a 
resting  and  basking  in  blessedness  poured  on  the  passive  recipi¬ 
ent  from  without.  It  is  the  most  intense  and  powerful  action  of 
all  the  energies  in  the  spontaneity  and  joy  of  perfect  love.  The 
Christian  conception  of  it  is  in  the  strongest  possible  contrast  with 
the  Nirvana  of  the  Buddhist,  in  which  not  activity  alone,  but 
personality  itself  are  lost  in  reabsorption  into  the  absolute. 

6.  The  development  of  a  wrong  character  issues  in  a  spon¬ 
taneity  of  selfishness  ;  but  with  important  differences  from  the 
development  of  a  right  character.  It  is  not  real  freedom. 

The  constitutional  powers  may  be  developed  and  strengthened 
by  a  life  of  wickedness  so  far  as  their  mere  exercise  can  do  it ;  the 
intellect  may  become  more  keen,  the  thought  more  vigorous,  the 
will  more  persistent.  So  the  muscles  may  be  developed  by  the 
exercise  of  a  pugilist  as  really  as  by  the  strokes  of  a  blacksmith ; 
keenness  of  perception,  sharpness  of  cunning,  skill  and  dexterity, 
may  be  developed  by  swindlers  and  robbers,  the  powers  of  a 
vol.  11.  —9 


130  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


great  general  may  be  developed  in  wars  of  ambition  and  con¬ 
quest.  And  in  a  life  of  wickedness  the  moral  character  is  more 
and  more  confirmed  in  sin. 

Here  the  process  of  development  of  a  wrong  character  is  anal¬ 
ogous  to  that  of  the  development  of  the  right  character.  The 
supreme  choice  of  self  is  gradually  strengthened  ;  the  subordinate 
choices  and  volitional  action  fall  into  line  with  it ;  the  natural 
appetites,  desires,  and  affections  are  penetrated,  perverted,  and 
disordered  by  it.  The  intellect  also  is  beclouded  and  misled. 
All  sin  rests  on  falsehood.  The  supreme  choice  of  self  can  be 
justified  only  on  assuming  as  true  the  fundamental  lie  that  the 
person  is  himself  the  source  and  centre  of  the  universe  and  that 
all  things  exist  by  and  for  him  and  are  bound  to  serve  him. 
Thus  acting  continually  on  the  basis  of  falsehood,  his  understand¬ 
ing  is  darkened  and  he  is  given  up  to  believe  lies.  His  spiritual 
discernment  is  dulled ;  his  conscience  is  seared ;  he  becomes 
less  and  less  conscious  of  restraint  by  his  higher  and  spiritual 
powers.  He  gravitates  toward  evil.  He  rushes  eagerly  down¬ 
ward  in  the  way  of  wickedness ;  his  “  steps  take  hold  on  hell.” 
Thus  his  selfishness  becomes  more  and  more  preponderant  and 
dominant ;  his  sinful  action  is  less  and  less  obstructed  from  within 
himself  and  goes  on  in  the  spontaneity  of  his  supreme  choice  of 
self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service. 

But  he  can  never  attain  in  the  life  of  selfishness  to  that  simpli¬ 
city,  unity,  and  harmony  of  life  which  is  called  real  freedom  and 
in  which  his  dominant  choice  is  not  obstructed  from  within  him¬ 
self.  He  must  always  be  in  conflict  with  his  reason  and  con¬ 
science,  and  with  all  the  higher  moral  and  spiritual  powers  and 
susceptibilities ;  for  these,  however  dulled,  can  never  be  extir¬ 
pated  nor  cease  to  witness  against  him  in  his  sin.  And  his  natural 
appetites,  desires,  and  affections,  being  not  regulated  and  har¬ 
monized,  but  perverted  and  disordered  by  his  supreme  choice  of 
self,  are  in  conflict  with  each  other,  rending  his  soul  with  con¬ 
tending  desires.  The  name  of  the  evil  in  him  is  always  Legion. 
And  besides  being  in  conflict  with  himself,  he  is  in  conflict  with 
God  and  with  the  constitution  and  on-going  of  the  universe.  And 
he  is  in  conflict  with  his  fellowmen  ;  for  when  a  man  is  supremely 
selfish  every  other  person  stands  in  his  way.  Therefore  a 
sinner  can  never  attain  to  real  freedom.  “  The  wicked  are  like 
the  troubled  sea ;  for  it  cannot  rest,  and  its  waters  cast  up  mire 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  1 3 1 


and  dirt.  There  is  no  peace,  saith  my  God,  to  the  wicked  ”  (Isa. 
lvii.  20,  21).  On  the  contrary,  because  he  gives  himself  up  to 
follow  his  natural  desires,  the  lowest  in  him  gains  the  mastery 
over  the  highest ;  and  because  some  one  appetite,  desire,  or 
affection  becomes  the  master  passion,  in  conflict  with  all  the 
other  desires  and  leading  them  captive  in  its  train,  the  sinner  is 
properly  said  to  be  in  bondage  to  sin.  And  this  conflict  of  pas¬ 
sions  and  this  servitude  to  sin  are  the  consummation  of  the  sinful 
character.  But  in  all  this  slavery  to  sin  the  man’s  personality,  his 
moral  freedom  and  responsibility  remain.  His  moral  character 
in  its  primary  meaning,  his  selfishness  in  all  its  manifestations,  is 
still  his  own  free  choice  or  preference ;  and  all  the  powers  and 
susceptibilities  which  constitute  him  a  personal  free  agent  remain. 
By  no  course  or  degree  of  sin  can  a  man  extinguish  his  person¬ 
ality  ;  for  that  would  be  to  annihilate  himself.  And  only  he  who 
creates  can  annihilate. 

7.  As  the  result  of  this  development,  moral  character  is  ulti¬ 
mately  confirmed  and  fixed,  so  that  no  temptation,  motive  or 
moral  influence  of  any  kind  will  induce  the  person  to  change  it 
by  a  new  supreme  choice. 

This  is  not  a  physical  or  constitutional  disability  to  do  other¬ 
wise.  It  is  mere  fixedness  of  free  choice,  and  of  the  moral 
character,  which  consists  primarily  in  the  choice,  and  which,  in  its 
secondary  meaning  as  the  state  of  the  intellect  and  the  sensibili¬ 
ties  and  the  habits  of  action,  has  been  determined  by  the  person’s 
own  free  choice  and  volitional  action.  In  a  person  whose  char¬ 
acter  is  thus  fixed,  reason,  free  will,  susceptibility  to  rational 
motives,  all  the  constituent  elements  of  personality,  remain. 

That  character  must  eventually  become  thus  fixed  is  a  neces¬ 
sary  inference  from  the  idea  of  character  and  its  development 
which  has  been  set  forth.  If  a  person  has  made  the  right  su¬ 
preme  choice  and  acted  in  agreement  with  it  till  the  trust  and 
service  have  become  spontaneous,  the  inference  is  inevitable  that 
no  moral  influence  will  ever  induce  him  to  reverse  it.  With  a 
character  not  yet  confirmed  he  has  already  resisted  and  overcome 
all  the  moral  influences  to  evil  which  have  tempted  him  whether 
by  enticement  or  by  opposition.  All  his  beliefs,  susceptibilities 
and  choices,  and  all  his  habits  of  action  are  in  harmony  with  one 
another  and  with  his  supreme  choice.  By  the  choice  of  higher 
ends  and  the  development  of  the  nobler  capacities  he  has  expelled 


132  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


all  desire  for  the  pleasures  of  sin  ;  they  can  no  longer  tempt  him  ; 
he  has  lost  the  capacity  for  enjoying  them.  His  whole  being 
gravitates  toward  God  ;  all  his  interest  and  enthusiasm  centre  on 
God  and  his  kingdom  and  on  the  realization  in  it  of  all  that  is 
true,  right,  perfect,  and  good.  The  Spirit  of  God  is  dwelling  in 
him  and  quickening  and  inspiring  in  him  the  life  of  love.  He  is 
also  working  in  harmony  with  the  constitution  of  the  moral 
system  and  of  the  universe.  He  is  in  harmony  with  God’s  arche¬ 
typal  ideal  of  the  universe  and  is  working  with  God  in  its  reali¬ 
zation.  Thus  his  character  in  its  highest  development  is  con¬ 
firmed  and  fixed  and  no  moral  influence  will  ever  induce  him  to 
change  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  person  who  persists  in  the  supreme 
choice  of  self  till  his  trust  and  service  of  self  have  become  sponta¬ 
neous,  ultimately  confirms  and  fixes  his  character  in  sin,  so  that 
no  moral  influence  from  the  divine  wisdom  and  love  will  ever 
induce  him  to  renounce  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and 
service  in  the  choice  of  God  with  all  his  heart  and  his  neighbor 
as  himself  as  the  object  of  his  love.  He  began  his  wrong  course  of 
life  not  yet  hardened  in  sin  by  resistance  of  God  and  all  influences 
to  a  right  life.  But  as  he  has  gone  on,  God  has  brought  to  bear 
on  him  every  influence  which  divine  wisdom  and  love  permit  and 
require,  to  induce  him  to  love  God  with  all  his  heart  and  his 
neighbor  as  himself.  All  these  influences  the  sinner  has  resisted. 
In  thus  resisting  God  and  persisting  in  sin  he  may  have  developed 
the  constitutional  powers  and  capacities  of  his  personality  to 
great  strength.  But  in  doing  this  he  has  also  confirmed  and  fixed 
his  moral  character  in  selfishness,  which  is  the  essence  ofv  sin,  so 
that  all  the  moral  influence  which  divine  wisdom  and  love  permit 
and  require  to  be  brought  on  him  will  fail  to  induce  him  to  repent 
of  sin  and  turn  to  God  in  love  and  obedience.  This  accords  with 
our  Lord’s  teaching  respecting  the  sin  which  “  shall  not  be  for¬ 
given,  neither  in  this  world  nor  in  that  which  is  to  come.”  It  is 
the  continued  resistance  of  God’s  Spirit  until  the  sinner  has  con¬ 
firmed  his  sinful  character  so  that  no  moral  influence  will  induce 
him  to  change  it.  The  final  sentence,  “  Depart,”  only  declares 
the  completeness  and  consummation  of  the  alienation  and  separa¬ 
tion  from  God  and  all  true  perfection  and  well-being  which  the 
sinner  himself  has  been  through  all  his  life  wilfully  and  diligently 
effecting. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  1 33 

But  there  is  a  difference  between  the  persistence  or  persever¬ 
ance  of  the  sinner  and  the  persistence  or  perseverance  of  the 
saint.  The  insurance  of  the  perseverance  of  the  latter  in  the  life 
of  love  rests  not  only  on  the  confirmation  of  his  character  by 
continued  acts  of  trust  and  service,  but  on  the  influence  of  the 
indwelling  Spirit  and  the  ever  environing  love  of  God,  quickening, 
inspiring,  guiding,  and  sustaining  him  in  the  right  spiritual  life. 
The  man  is  in  his  normal  condition  of  union  with  God  and  work¬ 
ing  together  with  him.  The  divine  and  the  human  agencies, 
both  indispensable  to  his  realizing  his  normal  perfection  and 
blessedness,  are  united  and  working  together  for  this  end.  Thus 
his  perfected  Christian  character  of  faith  and  love,  of  righteous¬ 
ness  and  good-will,  has  in  it  an  element  of  the  divine,  the  un¬ 
changeable,  and  the  eternal.  It  is  Christ  in  him  the  hope  of 
glory ;  he  “  by  the  power  of  God  is  guarded  through  faith  unto 
salvation”  (1  Pet.  i.  5).  But  the  sinful  character  even  in  its 
consummation  and  fixedness  has  in  it  nothing  of  the  divine  or 
the  eternal.  It  belongs  to  the  finite  ;  it  can  never  transcend  the 
finiteness  of  its  finite  author.  It  is  the  sinner  himself  who 
chooses  himself  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service,  who 
by  his  continued  selfish  action  consolidates  his  selfishness  into 
fixed  character  insensible  to  all  motives  to  a  life  of  faith  and  love. 
In  so  doing  not  only  is  there  no  divine  influence  moving  him 
thereto,  but  he  is  acting  in  resistance  to  the  ever  environing  in¬ 
fluences  of  God’s  wisdom  and  love  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit  draw¬ 
ing  him  to  the  life  of  faith  and  love.  And  even  after  his  sinful 
character  is  confirmed  and  consummated,  these  same  heavenly 
influences  continue  to  environ  him,  ready  always  to  touch  and 
move  him  to  a  right  life,  did  not  his  own  fixed  character  make 
him  insensible  and  inaccessible  to  them.  For  God,  as  he  is 
revealed  in  Christ,  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever. 
His  redeeming  love,  his  compassion  and  graciousness,  can  never 
cease.  He  is  always  ready  to  receive  as  a  returning  prodigal 
every  one  for  whom  Christ  died,  if  he  would  return.  It  is  only 
the  sinner’s  own  wilful  opposition  to  God  and  to  all  good,  fixed 
in  a  confirmed  sinful  character,  which  keeps  him  forever  away. 
Thus  sin,  from  its  beginning  through  all  its  action  and  develop¬ 
ment  and  in  its  final  consummation  in  fixed  and  consummated 
character,  has  in  it  and  is  sustained  by  nothing  that  is  divine.  In 
its  essence  it  is  finite  and  its  author  finite,  rejecting  all  that  is 


134  THE  LORD  of  all  in  moral  government 

true,  right,  perfect,  and  good,  standing  in  resistance  of  God  and 
of  the  never-ceasing  influence  of  his  wisdom  and  love. 

VI.  Natural  and  Moral  Ability.  —  I  add  a  brief  explana¬ 
tion  of  natural  and  moral  ability, — a  distinction  which  has  played 
an  important  part  in  our  theological  controversies,  though  now 
seldom  spoken  of.  President  Day  says  :  “  In  no  department  of 
theology  has  the  confusion  of  tongues  been  more  complete  than 
in  the  use  of  the  terms  can  and  cannot ,  ability  and  inability. 
Throughout  entire  campaigns  of  metaphysical  warfare  there  has 
been  little  else  than  a  dexterous  brandishing  of  weapons  furnished 
by  this  ambiguous  phraseology.”  1  With  our  more  exact  defini¬ 
tions  of  the  will  and  of  moral  character,  we  may  hope  to  clear  the 
distinction  from  ambiguity  and  to  present  the  truth  which  is  in  it 
freed  from  obscurity  and  misapprehension. 

i.  The  real  distinction  in  its  legitimate  application  is  this.  A 
person  has  natural  ability  to  cause  an  effect  when  he  has  faculties 
adequate  to  cause  it  under  existing  circumstances.  If  the  person 
voluntarily  exerts  these  faculties  he  causes  the  effect.  If  he  exerts 
them  in  a  particular  way  without  premeditated  and  voluntary  pur¬ 
pose  as  to  the  effect,  he  still  causes  the  effect,  —  as  when  one 
injures  himself  by  accidentally  running  against  a  post  or  discharg¬ 
ing  a  pistol.  If  he  does  not  exert  his  powers  to  produce  a  pro¬ 
posed  effect,  his  natural  ability  to  do  it  remains  unchanged. 
Natural  inability  implies  that,  with  whatever  voluntary  exertion  of 
the  faculties  under  the  given  circumstances,  the  person  is  unable 
to  effect  the  proposed  result.  Thus  natural  ability  or  inability 
exists  independently  of  the  determination  of  the  will  to  exert  or 
not  to  exert  the  powers.  One  who  has  natural  ability  to  cause 
an  effect  if  he  will,  continues  to  have  the  same  ability  if  he  will 
not. 

Moral  ability  is  simply  willingness  to  exert  the  faculties  and 
cause  a  proposed  effect.  It  is  the  determination  of  the  will  to 
do  it.  Moral  inability  is  unwillingness  to  exert  the  powers  and 
cause  the  effect. 

1  “  Inquiry  respecting  the  Self-Determining  Power  of  the  Will,”  p.  95. 
The  dissatisfaction  with  this  confusion  of  thought  found  expression  in  the 
popular  mind  in  the  doggerel  formerly  very  familiar : 

“  You  can  and  you  can’t ; 

You  will  and  you  won’t ; 

And  you  ’ll  be  damned  if  you  don’t.” 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  1 35 


Thus  two  antecedents  are  necessary  in  order  that  a  person  may 
effect  a  proposed  result.  One  is  his  possession  of  faculties  ade¬ 
quate  to  effect  the  result  under  the  given  circumstances ;  the 
other  is  the  determination  to  exert  his  faculties  in  order  to  effect 
it.  The  absence  of  either  of  these  antecedents  insures  that  he 
will  not  effect  the  result.  Therefore  in  popular  language  the 
words  can  and  cannot  are  used  to  express  the  presence  or 
absence  of  either  of  these  necessary  antecedents. 

This  usage  of  can  and  cannot  is  common  in  all  languages,  and 
expresses  the  common  consciousness  of  men.  Dr.  Erasmus 
Darwin,  having  carelessly  left  his  medicine-case  after  calling  on  a 
patient,  asked  a  little  boy  to  run  to  the  house  and  get  it.  The 
boy  said  he  was  too  tired  to  run.  The  doctor  handed  his  gold¬ 
headed  cane  to  the  boy  and  told  him  he  would  lend  him  a  horse 
to  ride  on.  Whereupon  the  boy  cantered  away  in  great  glee. 
On  his  return  the  doctor  said,  “You  told  me  you  were  too  tired  to 
run.”  The  boy  replied,  “I  can’t  run  as  fast  as  I  can  till  I  have  a 
horse  to  ride  on.”  A  little  boy,  being  told  to  do  something,  said, 
“I  don’t  want  to.”  Being  told  that  he  ought  to  want,  he  replied, 
“But  I  can’t  want  to.”  These  childish  utterances  show  that  this 
use  of  the  words  can  and  cannot  is  perfectly  natural.  And  it  is 
because  it  is  so  that  it  prevails  in  all  languages  and  literatures.  It 
expresses  the  common  consciousness  as  to  the  two  necessary 
antecedents  of  human  action  which  theologians  recognize,  and  try 
to  define  in  the  distinction  of  natural  and  moral  ability.  By  this 
usage  of  can  and  will ,  cannot  and  will  not ,  difference  in  con¬ 
scious  fixedness  of  purpose  is  indicated.  If  one  is  asked,  Will 
you  do  this?  and  answers,  Yes,  I  can  do  it,  it  indicates  consent 
of  the  will  in  a  low  degree,  in  which  the  person  is  conscious  of 
scarcely  more  than  the  mere  power  to  do  it.  I  will  do  it,  indi¬ 
cates  stronger  determination.  But  if  the  reply  is  negative,  I  can- 
not  do  it,  it  indicates  the  consciousness  of  fixed  and  unchangeable 
unwillingness.  A  less  fixed  determination  is  indicated  by,  I  will 
not.  A  mother  asked  to  forsake  her  child  would  not  say,  I  will 
not,  but,  I  cannot . 

This  usage  of  the  words  is  found  in  the  Bible.  It  appears  in 
speaking  of  secular  affairs;  as,  “Joseph’s  brothers  hated  him  and 
could  not  speak  peaceably  unto  him.”  It  appears  also  in  speak¬ 
ing  of  man’s  spiritual  life  :  “  The  carnal  mind  is  enmity  against 
God ;  it  is  not  subject  to  the  law  of  God,  neither  indeed  can 


1 36  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


be.”  1  There  is  no  more  reason  for  insisting  that  passages  like 
these  declare  that  man  has  no  natural  ability  to  serve  God,  and 
has  lost  his  free  will  in  sin,  than  for  drawing  the  same  inference 
from  the  language  of  a  merchant  when  he  says  he  cannot  sell  an 
article  of  goods  for  less  than  he  has  asked. 

The  distinction  has  thus  far  been  defined  in  its  legitimate  appli¬ 
cation  to  man’s  efficient  action,  his  exertion  of  his  energies.  One 
has  not  strength  to  lift  two  hundred  pounds ;  or  he  has  not  intel¬ 
lectual  power  and  development  adequate  to  solve  an  intricate 
problem  of  calculus.  The  hindrance  here  is  constitutional  or 
natural.  He  cannot,  if  he  exerts  his  power  to  the  utmost. 
Another  has  the  requisite  physical  or  intellectual  power,  but 
does  not  choose  to  lift  the  weight  or  solve  the  problem.  The 
hindrance  here  is  not  constitutional  or  natural ;  it  is  unwilling¬ 
ness.  Hence  the  former  is  called  natural  inability,  the  latter 
moral. 

2.  The  distinction  is  illegitimately  applied  to  the  determina¬ 
tions  of  the  will  itself.  It  is  said,  True,  one  has  ability  to  effect  a 
result  if  he  will;  but  has  he  the  ability  to  will  to  effect  it?  It  is 
chiefly  in  attempting  to  make  this  application  of  the  distinction 
that  the  confusion  of  thought  has  arisen. 

In  this  application  of  it,  one’s  natural  ability  to  will  would 
denote  simply  the  fact  that  man  is  a  personal  being  constitution¬ 
ally  endowed  with  reason  and  free  will ;  that  he  is  self-determin¬ 
ing,  both  self-directive  and  self-exertive.  So  far  all  is  plain. 

But  the  moment  moral  ability  or  inability  to  will  is  asserted, 
the  confusion  of  thought  begins.  This  assertion  is  incompatible 
with  the  true  conception  of  the  will.  Moral  ability  to  will  would 
be  willingness  to  will.  This  carries  us  at  once  to  the  old  theory 
that  determination  of  the  will  is  caused  by  some  act  antece¬ 
dent  to  the  determination,  and  is  not  the  immediate  act  of  the 
man  determining.  Then  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  used  by 
Edwards  is  applicable,  that,  if  the  will  is  self-determining,  every 
act  of  the  will  is  caused  by  a  preceding  act  of  will,  and  so  on  to 
infinity.  Then  we  should  be  driven  to  the  determinism  of  Ed¬ 
wards,  that  the  determination  of  the  will  is  caused  by  the  motive, 
and  is  not  the  immediate  act  of  the  man  himself.  If  the  will 
is  rightly  conceived  as  the  person  or  ego  determining,  in  the 

1  Gen.  xxxvii.  4;  Matth.  xii.  34;  Acts  iv.  19,  20;  x.  47;  Gen.  xix.  22; 
Mark  vi.  5;  John  v.  44;  vi.  44,  45,  65 ;  Rom.  viii.  7. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  1 3 7 


light  of  reason  and  susceptible  to  the  influence  of  rational 
motives,  both  the  object  and  the  exertion  of  his  energies,  then 
willingness  to  will  and  unwillingness  to  will  become  phrases 
without  meaning.  Moral  ability  or  inability  to  will  is,  therefore, 
an  illegitimate  application  of  the  distinction  and  can  issue  only  in 
confusion  of  thought. 

The  predication  of  moral  ability  and  inability  of  the  will  itself 
is  also  a  blind  attempt  to  define  freedom  of  the  will  in  terms  of 
power  only,  without  reference  to  reason  and  the  susceptibility  to 
rational  motives  and  all  the  essential  characteristics  of  a  personal 
spirit.  The  result  is  that  freedom  of  the  will,  defined  in  terms  of 
power  only,  must  be  defined  merely  as  the  power  of  contrary 
choice.  The  futility  of  this  attempt  is  evident  in  the  definition 
itself,  which  is  only  an  attempt  to  distinguish  power  from  itself 
and  choice  from  itself.  This  implies  that  the  power  of  contrary 
choice  is  the  same  with  the  power  of  choice.  And  this  becomes 
evident  when  we  examine  the  supposed  power  to  the  contrary. 
This  power  to  the  contrary  can  exist  only  before  the  choice  is 
made.  In  the  moment  of  determining  or  choosing  it  is  impos¬ 
sible  to  choose  the  contrary,  because  it  would  be  choosing  two 
contrary  things  at  the  same  moment.  After  the  determination  or 
choice  is  made  a  reconsideration  and  reversal  of  it  would  be  a 
new  choice,  requiring  for  itself  an  antecedent  power  to  the  con¬ 
trary.  Thus  the  power  of  contrary  choice  is  precisely  the  same 
with  the  power  of  choice  ;  it  is  simply  the  power  to  determine 
between  two  or  more  objects  of  action,  or  between  exerting  and 
not  exerting  the  energies.  When  we  remember  a  choice  already 
made  we  are  aware  that  we  might  have  chosen  the  contrary.  It 
is  only  in  this  remembrance  that  the  power  of  choice  is  thought 
of  as  a  power  of  contrary  choice  ;  thus  it  is  only  in  such  a  remem¬ 
brance  that  the  idea  of  the  power  of  contrary  choice  originates. 
A  choice  must  be  made  of  one  before  it  is  possible  to  think  of  the 
choice  of  another  as  a  contrary  choice. 

3.  Natural  ability  is  ability  in  its  primary  and  proper  sense. 
Moral  ability  is  ability  in  a  secondary,  qualified  sense ;  it  is  rhet¬ 
orical  rather  than  logical.  President  Edwards  says  :  “  It  must  be 
observed  concerning  moral  inability  in  each  kind  of  it,  that  the 
word  inability  is  used  in  a  sense  very  diverse  from  its  original 
import.  ...  In  the  strictest  propriety  of  speech  a  man  has  a 
thing  in  his  power,  if  he  has  it  in  his  choice  or  at  his  election ; 


138  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


and  a  man  cannot  be  truly  said  to  be  unable  to  do  a  thing,  when 
he  can  do  it  if  he  will.  It  is  improperly  said  that  a  person  can¬ 
not  perform  those  external  actions  which  are  dependent  on  the 
act  of  the  will,  and  which  would  be  easily  performed  if  the  act  of 
the  will  were  present.  And  it  is  in  some  respects  more  improp¬ 
erly  said  that  he  is  unable  to  exert  the  acts  of  the  will  themselves, 
because  it  is  more  evidently  false,  with  respect  to  these,  that  he 
cannot  if  he  will ;  for  to  say  so  is  a  downright  contradiction ;  it 
is  to  say  he  cannot  will  if  he  does  will.  And  in  this  case,  not 
only  is  it  true  that  it  is  easy  for  a  man  to  do  the  thing  if  he  will, 
but  the  very  willing  is  the  doing ;  when  once  he  has  willed,  the 
thing  is  performed  and  nothing  else  remains  to  be  done.  There¬ 
fore,  in  these  things  to  ascribe  a  non-performance  to  the  want  of 
power  or  ability  is  not  just,  —  because  the  thing  wanting  is  not 
a  being  able,  but  a  being  willing.  There  are  faculties  of  mind 
and  a  capacity  of  nature  and  everything  else  sufficient,  but  a 
disposition,  —  nothing  is  wanting  but  a  will.”1 

4.  A  right  understanding  of  this  distinction  enables  us  to  com¬ 
prehend  in  our  thought  the  truth  and  to  exclude  the  errors  on 
both  sides  of  the  controversy. 

On  the  one  side,  in  emphasizing  moral  inability,  it  was  said 
that,  whatever  may  be  the  natural  powers  of  man,  he  is  so  sunk  in 
sin  that  they  are  not  available  for  his  use,  and  of  himself  he  will 
never  exert  them  in  repentance  and  turning  to  God  ;  that  we  only 
deceive  him,  if  we  preach  his  natural  ability  to  repent,  and  delude 
him  into  a  fatal  self-confidence ;  that,  therefore,  it  is  better  to 
preach  only  man’s  inability  to  turn  from  sin  and  his  entire  de¬ 
pendence  on  the  sovereign  grace  of  God.  When  I  was  a  pastor, 
a  distinguished  college  president  preached  to  my  people  explicitly 
that  a  sinner  has  no  more  power  to  repent  than  a  dead  man  has 
to  rise  from  the  grave.  This  involves  the  denial  of  man’s  likeness 
to  God  as  a  personal  spirit,  of  his  rational  free  agency,  his  moral 
responsibility,  and  his  blameworthiness  as  a  sinner.  These  facts 
thus  denied  are  asserted  and  vindicated  by  those  who  emphasize 
man’s  natural  ability. 

On  the  other  side,  in  emphasizing  natural  ability,  it  has  been 
preached  that  nothing  but  his  own  unwillingness  prevents  any 
sinner  from  returning  to  God  in  faith  and  repentance,  and  that  it 
is  as  easy  for  him  to  do  so  as  it  is  for  one  who  is  walking  to  turn 

1  Edwards  on  “  The  Will,”  part  i.  sect.  iv. 


MORAL  CHARACTER  DEFINED  PSYCHOLOGICALLY  1 39 


about  and  walk  in  another  direction.  But  this  style  of  preaching 
overlooks  two  momentous  facts. 

It  overlooks  the  real  significance  of  willingness  and  unwilling¬ 
ness.  It  has  been  shown  that  character  itself  is  fundamentally 
the  supreme  choice  of  the  will ;  that  it  is  strengthened  by  con¬ 
tinuous  action  in  accordance  with  it ;  that  it  infuses  its  influence 
into  the  intellect,  the  feelings,  and  the  habits  of  action,  and  that 
thus  the  character  becomes  developed  and  confirmed.  The 
change  in  a  sinner  turning  to  God  is  the  change  of  this  funda¬ 
mental  and  supreme  choice  thus  consolidated  into  character  and 
ramifying  into  the  intellect,  the  motives  and  emotions,  and  the 
habits.  It  is  a  gross  misrepresentation  to  describe  this  funda¬ 
mental  change  as  no  more  than  a  volitional  external  action,  like 
turning  over  the  hand  or  accepting  an  offered  book.  The  impor¬ 
tant  truth  vindicated  in  the  assertion  of  man’s  natural  ability  is, 
that  however  a  person’s  character  is  developed  and  confirmed 
either  in  sin  or  in  holy  love,  he  never  loses  his  free  will  nor  ceases 
to  be  a  rational  free  agent,  self-determining  and  responsible  for 
his  actions  and  his  character.  Another  fact  often  overlooked  in 
emphasizing  man’s  natural  ability  is  the  dependence  of  every  per¬ 
sonal  being  for  his  spiritual  development  and  growth  on  God  who 
is  his  spiritual  environment.  We  have  seen  that  man’s  normal 
condition  is  in  union  with  God,  and  that  man  cannot  enter  into 
this  union  unless  God  is  graciously  disposed  to  receive  him,  and 
so  first  seeks  him  with  influences  to  induce  him  to  come.  But 
the  man  is  not  passive  in  receiving  God’s  grace.  It  is  not  poured 
into  him  without  any  action  on  his  part.  He  comes  into  union 
with  God  by  freely  yielding  to  the  divine  drawing,  and  opening 
his  heart  in  trust  in  God  to  receive  his  divine  influence  and  to 
follow  it.  This  receptive  act  of  trust  or  faith  is  the  free  act  of  the 
man  ;  it  is  the  condition  on  which  God’s  gracious  influences 
become  effective  to  bless  him.  And  he  has  natural  ability  to 
trust  in  God  and  so  to  receive  continuously  the  enlightening  and 
quickening  influences  of  the  Spirit  of  God  dwelling  in  him.  It 
requires  no  strength  to  surrender,  but  only  the  consciousness  of 
weakness.  But  even  to  surrender  is  a  free  act. 

Here  we  see  the  truth  of  the  doctrine  that  a  man  of  himself 
cannot  come  to  God.  But  it  has  been  held  in  connection  with 
two  momentous  errors.  One  is  that  the  impossibility  of  man’s 
returning  of  himself  alone  to  God  rests  on  his  lack  of  power  to  do 


140  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


so ;  whereas  it  arises  from  the  simple  and  obvious  fact  that  God 
was  not  moved  by  any  right  action  of  man  to  come  in  Christ 
reconciling  the  world  to  himself,  but  moved  by  his  own  universal 
love  to  come  to  men  while  they  were  yet  sinners  ;  and  if  any  man 
is  to  be  reconciled  to  God  and  to  be  received  into  union  with 
him,  the  necessary  presupposition  must  be  that  God  is  antece¬ 
dently  gracious  and  seeking  to  draw  the  man  to  himself.  There¬ 
fore  no  man  of  himself  alone  can  come  to  God  and  be  accepted 
of  him.  But  the  glad  tidings  is  that  God  is  already  seeking  all 
men  in  his  redeeming  grace,  and  whoever  will  may  come.  The 
other  error  was  in  the  doctrine  of  God’s  unconditional  election  of 
some  to  salvation  and  his  preterition  or  reprobation  of  others, 
entirely  irrespective  of  any  act  or  character  of  the  man.  Whereas 
the  truth  is  that  God’s  love  encompasses  every  person  like  the 
sunshine,  and  whosoever  will  may  accept  it  freely.  No  man  can 
come  to  Christ  unless  the  Father  draw  him.  But  it  is  equally  true 
that  Christ,  when  he  is  lifted  up,  draws  all  men  unto  him. 

Theology  has  not,  as  many  seem  to  imagine,  created  the  dis¬ 
tinction  of  natural  and  moral  ability,  and  is  not  responsible  for  its 
existence.  It  has  attempted  to  define  accurately  the  distinction 
which  really  exists,  which  is  recognized  in  the  Bible  and  in  all 
languages  and  literatures,  and  is  necessary  to  any  complete  and 
consistent  conception  of  moral  agency  and  of  the  formation  of 
moral  character. 


CHAPTER  XX 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 

In  the  last  chapter  moral  character  is  defined  psychologically. 
It  is  now  to  be  defined  ethically ;  that  is,  as  related  to  and 
required  by  law.  We  are  to  examine  the  law  itself  to  ascertain 
what  it  is.  Here  two  questions  arise.  The  first  is,  What  is  law 
in  its  essential  idea  and  significance?  What  constitutes  it  law, 
and  what  is  the  ground  or  reason  of  the  obligation  to  obey  it? 
The  other  is,  What  does  the  law  require?  The  answer  to  each 
of  these  questions  may  be  expressed  in  an  essential  and  compre¬ 
hensive  principle.  The  principle  which  is  the  answer  to  the 
former  of  these  questions  may  be  called  the  formal  principle  of 
the  law,  —  that  is,  the  principle  formative  or  constitutive  of  it  as 
law.  The  principle  which  is  the  answer  to  the  latter  may  be 
called  the  real  principle  of  the  law,  as  declaring  the  essence  of 
the  requirement  of  the  law,  and  therefore  the  essence  of  all  right 
character. 

The  formal  principle  is,  What  is  true  to  reason  is  law  to  will ; 
or,  A  rational  being  ought  to  act  reasonably.  When  we  have 
ascertained  that  God  exists,  the  absolute  Reason,  and  that  in  him 
all  truth  and  law,  all  ideals  of  perfection  and  good,  are  arche¬ 
typal  and  eternal,  then  we  know  that  law  was  never  created  by 
any  fiat  of  arbitrary  almightiness,  nor  by  any  enactment  of  un¬ 
regulated  and  capricious  will,  but  that  it  is  eternal  in  the  divine 
Reason ;  and  that  the  universe  is  the  progressive  realization,  by 
the  action  of  the  divine  will  in  love,  of  this  eternal  archetype  of 
the  divine  Reason.  Then  the  formal  principle  of  the  law  is  that 
the  principles  eternal  in  the  divine  Reason  are  law  to  every  rational 
being ;  or,  Every  rational  being  ought  to  obey  God. 

Thus  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  authority  of  law  and  of  moral 
obligation  to  obey  it  is  eternal  in  God,  the  absolute  Reason.  It 


142  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


is  said  by  some  that  the  ground  of  authority  and  obligation  is  in 
the  constitution  of  things ;  and  by  others  that  it  is  in  the  rational 
and  moral  constitution  of  man.  But  these  propositions  are  true 
only  in  the  sense  that  the  constitution  of  the  universe  is  itself  the 
expression  of  the  mind  of  God ;  and  the  rational  and  moral  con¬ 
stitution  of  man  is  in  God’s  likeness.  They  are  not  the  ground 
of  authority  and  law,  but  the  revelation  through  which  we  trace 
authority  and  law  back  to  their  eternal  seat  in  God. 

The  other  question  is  as  to  the  real  principle  of  the  law  :  What 
does  the  law  require?  The  law  or  standard  of  right  is  eternal  in 
God.  But  how  are  we  to  find  out  what  it  requires?  This  can 
be  ascertained  only  through  God’s  revelation  of  himself.  Man 
finds  it  first  revealed  in  his  own  reason  and  conscience,  in  which 
God  speaks,  as  it  were,  in  the  human  soul.  As  soon  as  man 
knows  himself  in  a  moral  system,  he  knows  that  he  has  no  right 
to  live  for  himself  alone,  but  that  he  owes  duties  to  others ;  that 
they  have  rights  and  interests  which  he  is  bound  to  respect. 
Accordingly  in  all  literature  and  history  we  find  more  or  less 
clear  recognition  of  obligation  to  regard  the  rights  of  others  and 
to  act  according  to  the  law  of  love.  And  pre-eminently  God 
reveals  his  law  of  love  in  Christ,  “the  outshining  of  the  Father’s 
glory  and  the  very  image  of  his  substance,”  the  exponent  to  us 
under  human  limitations  and  conditions  of  the  heart  and  mind 
of  God ;  and  in  all  God’s  revelation  of  himself  establishing  his 
kingdom  on  earth,  culminating  in  Christ  and  the  outpouring  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  as  recorded  in  the  Bible. 

The  real  principle  of  the  law  is  declared  and  exemplified  by 
Christ.  It  is  :  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  with  all 
thy  might ;  and  thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself. 

Ethics  must  answer  both  of  these  questions  ;  and  there  have 
been  various  theories  in  answer  to  each.  I  refer  the  reader  to 
the  “  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism  ”  for  an  examination  of  the  idea, 
significance,  and  reality  of  law,  and  of  several  of  the  theories  per¬ 
taining  to  this  department  of  ethics.1  In  this  and  several  fol¬ 
lowing  chapters  I  shall  answer  the  question,  What  does  the  law 
require  or  command? 

It  has  been  debated  whether  ethics  is  a  legitimate  topic  in 

1  Chap.  viii.  pp.  180-226.  See  also  chaps,  iii.,  iv.  and  “  God’s  Right  to 
Sovereignty  ”  in  chap.  xiv.  of  volume  i. 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


143 


doctrinal  theology.  But  I  cannot  conceive  of  a  system  of  doc¬ 
trinal  theology  which  leaves  out  all  exposition  of  the  law  and 
moral  government  of  God,  a  knowledge  of  which  is  essential  to 
the  right  understanding  of  every  theological  doctrine.  And  I 
cannot  conceive  of  a  system  of  ethics  intelligently  and  rightly 
developed,  which  leaves  out  the  law  and  moral  government  of 
God,  which  are  the  foundation  of  all  true  ethics  and  are  the  life 
and  heart  of  all  right  morality.  If  a  man  denies  the  existence  of 
God,  his  own  rational  and  moral  constitution  remains,  he  still  has 
intuitive  perception  of  right  and  wrong,  and  the  knowledge  of 
moral  ideas  and  distinctions,  of  obligation,  duty,  and  law.  There¬ 
fore  he  can  construct  a  system  of  theoretical  and  practical  ethics. 
But  in  denying  God  he  denies  the  absolute  and  universal  Reason, 
the  fundamental  reality  which  makes  a  true  and  complete  moral 
system  possible.  Therefore,  on  the  basis  of  this  denial,  the  theory 
of  ethics  must  be  superficial  and  inadequate,  because  it  leaves  out 
that  which  gives  their  deepest  significance  to  the  ideas  of  right 
and  wrong,  of  obligation  and  duty,  and  which  gives  the  only  real 
rationale  of  moral  law  and  government.  And  the  practical  ethics 
must  be  fragmentary  and  defective,  because  it  lacks  that  which 
alone  gives  the  real  principle  of  the  law,  the  true  essence  and 
vitality  of  moral  character,  and  the  comprehensive  unity  and 
completeness  of  moral  duties. 

But  it  is  not  necessary  in  theology  to  examine  the  details  of 
duties  belonging  to  practical  ethics.  I  shall  confine  myself  to 
an  exposition  of  the  real  and  essential  principle  of  the  law  from 
which  all  particular  precepts  and  duties  are  to  be  developed,  and 
to  an  indication  of  the  various  lines  of  its  development  in  its 
various  aspects  and  applications.  In  considering  the  distribution 
of  duties  to  particular  persons  I  shall  present  principles  regulating 
the  determination  of  duty  rather  than  specific  duties  in  detail. 

I.  The  Real  Principle  of  the  Law. — The  requirement  of 
the  law  is  expressed  in  a  principle  of  which  all  commandments 
of  specific  duties  are  different  aspects  and  applications. 

1.  This  characteristic  of  the  law  is  essential  to  the  true  idea 
of  moral  character  and  action. 

The  virtues  and  virtuous  acts  cannot  be  comprehended  under 
a  general  name,  nor  be  included  in  a  class  as  virtuous  or  right, 
unless  there  is  some  quality  common  to  them  all  whereby  they 
are  virtuous  and  right. 


144  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


Some  common  quality  of  all  virtues  is  essential  to  the  existence 
of  moral  character.  Without  it  the  unity  and  continuity  essential 
in  the  very  idea  of  character  would  be  wanting,  and  character 
would  be  impossible.  It  would  give  place  to  isolated  acts. 
Then  morality  would  be  disintegrated  into  a  multitude  of  dis¬ 
connected  and  piecemeal  duties.  The  spontaneity  essential  to 
right  character  would  also  be  wanting,  and  ethics  would  recog¬ 
nize  only  the  rigid  obligation  of  duty. 

Moreover,  since  the  same  outward  act  may  be  right  or  may 
be  wrong,  the  essence  of  right  action  and  character  cannot 
be  anything  distinctive  of  the  outward  act ;  it  must  be  the  inward 
ruling  choice  of  the  person. 

Therefore  there  must  be  a  real  principle  of  the  law  declaring 
what  is  the  essence  of  all  virtues  and  of  all  right  action,  by 
common  participation  in  which  they  are  all  virtuous,  —  declaring 
what  is  the  inward  and  abiding  action,  state,  or  disposition  of 
a  person  which  must  vitalize  all  virtues  and  all  right  actions  and 
be  manifested  or  expressed  in  them  in  order  to  constitute  them 
virtuous  and  right. 

The  reality  of  this  common  element  of  all  the  virtues,  and 
of  the  real  principle  of  the  law  requiring  them  was  recognized 
by  the  ancients.  Cicero  says  :  “  The  virtues  are  so  connected 
that  all  are  participants  of  all  nor  can  they  be  separated  from 
one  another.”  “  Virtue  is  the  same  in  God  and  in  man.”  1  Plato 
says  in  the  “  Meno  ”  :  “  Though  the  virtues  are  many  and  various, 

there  is  one  common  idea  (eTSo?)  belonging  to  them  all,  whereby 
they  are  virtues.”  The  same  is  the  teaching  of  James  :  “  Who¬ 
soever  shall  keep  the  whole  law  and  yet  stumble  in  one  point, 
he  is  become  guilty  of  all.”  The  precepts  of  the  law  rest  on  the 
real  principle,  like  pearls  on  a  string.  If  the  string  is  broken  at 
any  point,  the  pearls  are  scattered  and  the  necklace  ruined.  It 
matters  not  in  what  outward  act  a  person  renounces  God  and 
chooses  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service,  —  in  that 
act  he  breaks  the  law  and  effects  the  fatal  alienation  of  himself 
from  God. 

2.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  say  that  the  common  quality  of  right 
action  and  character  is  that  they  are  conformed  to  the  law ;  for 
this  is  only  saying  that  all  right  action  and  character  are  right. 
It  does  not  declare  what  the  law  requires  as  its  real  and  essential 

1  De  Finibus,  lib.  v.  23  ;  De  Legibus,  lib.  i.  8. 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


145 


principle.  It  is  an  attempt  to  construct  a  theory  of  ethics  from 
the  formal  principle  of  the  law  alone.  Various  ethical  systems 
rest  on  this  error.  Kant  reduces  virtue  to  the  doing  of  naked 
duty  out  of  reverence  for  the  law,  and  purified  from  all  emotion. 
“  I  am  so  to  act  as  to  be  willing  that  the  maxim  regulating  my 
conduct  should  become  a  universal  law.”  “  Every  action  is  right 
and  just,  the  maxim  of  which  allows  the  agent’s  freedom  of  choice 
to  harmonize  with  the  freedom  of  every  other  person  according  to 
a  universal  law.”  1  Aristotle  makes  virtue  to  be  the  mean  between 
two  extremes ;  for  example,  frugality  is  the  mean  between  avarice 
and  prodigality.  Bishop  Butler  teaches  that  the  virtuous  char¬ 
acter  consists  in  the  harmony  of  all  the  powers  of  man  under  the 
supreme  authority  of  conscience.  Rev.  W.  D.  Ground  says  that 
“  all  the  other  virtues  are  contained  in  justice”;2  but  justice 
denotes  merely  conformity  with  law  and  rendering  to  all  their 
dues,  without  defining  what  the  law  requires  and  what  is  due  in 
obedience  to  it.  These  are  examples  of  attempts  to  construct  an 
ethical  theory  on  the  formal  principle  of  the  law  alone.  They 
declare  merely  that  the  essence  of  a  right  act  or  character  is  its 
conformity  with  the  law,  without  informing  us  what  the  law  re¬ 
quires.  They  necessarily  imply  that  moral  action  must  consist  in 
the  perfunctory  doing  of  isolated  and  piecemeal  duties. 

Such  an  absolute  authority  which  declares  no  fundamental  and 
essential  principle  of  law,  but  calls  on  the  subject  to  obey  its 
arbitrary  behests  without  questioning,  whatever  they  may  be, 
would  be  no  more  than  a  resistless  and  almighty  will ;  and  sub¬ 
mission  to  it  would  degrade  man  to  a  slavish  obedience  and  crush 
the  nobler  elements  of  manhood.  The  government  would  be  a 
despotism  and  its  subjects  would  be  slaves.  So,  under  despotism 
in  the  lower  types  of  civilization,  we  read  of  the  slave  kissing  the 
hand  of  the  master  who  was  strangling  him,  and  of  men,  arrested 
on  false  accusations,  not  daring  even  to  deny  it,  and  in  fact 
crushed  into  stolid  indifference  to  their  fate.3 

3.  The  real  principle  of  the  requirement  of  the  law  is  declared 
by  our  Saviour  in  the  law  of  universal  love.  Its  significance  is 

1  Grundlegung  zur  Metaphysik  der  Sitten,  ed.  Rosenkranz,  pp.  22,  47, 
66,  79;  Prakt.  Vernunft,  p.  141  ;  Die  Metaph.  der  Sitten,  Theil  I.  “  Einleitung 
in  die  Rechtslehre,”  §  C. 

2  Structural  Principles  of  Spencer’s  Philosophy,  p.  302. 

3  Noire,  “  Die  Welt  als  Entwicklung  des  Geistes,”  pp.  405,  406. 

VOL.  11.  —  10 


146  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


further  disclosed  in  his  personal  life,  character,  teaching,  and 
work.  And  in  the  humiliation,  suffering,  and  death,  and  in  all 
his  work  as  the  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself, 
he  has  revealed,  not  only  its  significance  in  its  practical  applica¬ 
tion,  but  also  as  law  absolute,  unchangeable,  inviolable,  of  supreme 
and  universal  authority,  eternal  in  the  divine  Reason  and  regu¬ 
lative  of  the  divine  action  in  the  constitution  and  development 
of  the  universe.  This  law  requires  universal  love ;  the  object  of 
the  love  is  God  as  supreme  and  our  neighbor  as  ourselves ; 
psychologically  defined,  the  act  of  love  is  the  person’s  own  free, 
abiding,  and  dominant  choice  of  the  object  to  which  his  energies 
shall  be  devoted ;  and  it  is  manifested  in  trust  and  service  of  the 
persons  loved. 

This  love  is  to  extend  to  all  God’s  rational  creatures  and  is  to 
be  actively  manifested  so  far  as  they  are  our  neighbors ;  that  is, 
so  far  as  they  come  within  the  reach  of  our  influence  and  action. 
All  true  ethics  consists  in  unfolding  the  various  aspects  and  appli¬ 
cations  of  this  love  and  the  specific  duties  involved  therein. 

It  is  a  defect  of  many  ethical  systems  that  they  are  not  de¬ 
veloped  from  the  real  principle  of  the  law,  and  do  not  even 
recognize  it  as  such.  They,  therefore,  can  present  only  a  multi¬ 
tude  of  disconnected  duties,  to  be  done  perfunctorily  under  the 
sense  of  obligation  without  the  spontaneity  of  love.  Even  love  is 
often  presented,  not  as  the  vitalizing  spirit  of  all  right  character, 
but  as  itself  one  among  many  isolated  virtues.  It  is  not  uncom¬ 
mon  for  both  moralists  and  theologians  to  imply,  and  sometimes 
even  to  assert  that  justice  is  excluded  from  love  and  even  in  con¬ 
flict  with  it.  Such  disintegration  of  moral  law  and  moral  char¬ 
acter  is  logically  impossible,  when  once  it  is  thoroughly  understood 
that  Christ’s  law  of  love  is  the  real,  essential,  and  all-comprehend¬ 
ing  principle  of  the  moral  law. 

II.  Classification  of  Theories. —  Having  now  distinctly  recog¬ 
nized  the  fact  that  the  law  is  given  in  a  real,  essential,  and  all- 
comprehending  principle,  the  question  before  us  is,  What  is  this 
real  principle  of  the  law?  The  psychological  definition  of  moral 
character  as  primarily  the  supreme  choice  makes  it  possible  to 
present  the  question  in  a  still  more  exact  form  :  What  is  the 
object  of  a  right  supreme  choice?  Thus  the  question  is  cleared 
of  much  which  is  irrelevant  and  which  has  commonly  confused 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


H7 


the  discussion  of  the  requirement  of  the  law,  and  we  are  enabled 
to  define  and  classify  the  possible  ethical  theories  in  answer  to 
the  question  as  now  stated. 

There  may  be  two  answers  to  this  question  :  First,  The  object 
of  the  right  supreme  choice  is  something  to  be  acquired,  possessed 
and  used.  Secondly,  The  object  of  the  right  supreme  choice  is 
a  person  or  persons  to  be  trusted  and  served.  Under  one  or  the 
other  of  these  all  possible  answers  to  the  question  as  now  stated 
are  included.  The  ethical  theories  in  answer  to  the  question  are, 
therefore,  all  included  in  these  two  classes. 

The  first  class  admits  two  possible  subdivisions.  All  which 
may  rightly  be  chosen  to  be  acquired  and  possessed,  either  for 
one’s  self  or  another,  may  be  comprehended  in  the  Good.  The 
Good,  estimated  by  the  standards  of  reason  as  having  true  worth, 
must  comprise  both  character  and  happiness.  It  consists  in  the 
perfection  of  the  being  and  the  happiness  resulting.  A  theory  of 
ethics  may  present  either  of  these  separate  from  the  other  as  the 
object  of  the  right  supreme  choice.  Thus  we  have  two  possible 
subdivisions  of  the  first  class  :  those  which  declare  that  the  object 
of  the  right  supreme  choice  is  happiness,  measured  only  by  quan¬ 
tity  as  to  duration  and  intensity,  and  those  which  declare  that 
the  object  is  right  character,  virtue,  or  holiness,  chosen  for  its 
own  sake.  In  the  Greek  philosophy  these  two  were  represented 
respectively  by  Epicureanism  and  Stoicism. 

The  first  of  these  subdivisions  may  itself  be  divided  into  two. 
The  first  of  these  declares  that  the  object  of  the  supreme  choice 
is  the  happiness  of  one’s  self ;  the  second  declares  it  to  be  the 
maximum  of  happiness  for  all.  Thus  we  find  three  subdivisions 
of  the  first  class. 

There  can  be  no  subdivision  of  the  second  class.  In  this  the 
Christian  ethics  stands  alone. 

We  have  now  this  tabulation  of  the  several  classes  :  — 

Class  I.  —  Theories  that  the  object  of  the  supreme  choice  is 
something  to  be  acquired  and  possessed  : 

1.  Egoistic  Hedonism  or  the  Self-love  Theory,  that  the  ob¬ 
ject  of  the  right  supreme  choice  is  the  happiness  of  the  person 
himself. 

/ 

2.  Universalistic  Hedonism  or  Utilitarianism,  the  theory  that 
the  object  of  the  right  supreme  choice  is  the  maximum  of  happi¬ 
ness  for  all. 


148  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

3.  The  theory  of  rectitude,  that  the  object  of  the  right  supreme 
choice  is  right  character,  or  holiness  chosen  for  its  own  sake. 

Class  II.  —  The  Christian  ethics,  that  the  object  of  the  right 
supreme  choice  is  not  anything  to  be  acquired,  possessed,  and 
used,  but  persons  to  be  trusted  and  served ;  God  as  supreme 
and  our  neighbor  as  ourselves  as  objects  of  trust  and  service. 

III.  Theories  of  the  First  Class.  The  three  theories  of 
the  first  class  give  erroneous  definitions  of  the  real  principle  of 
the  law.  To  avoid  repetition,  the  errors  common  to  these  three 
theories  will  be  considered  first ;  afterwards  the  errors  peculiar  to 
and  distinctive  of  each. 

1.  The  fundamental  and  essential  principle  of  all  of  them  is 
false.  They  all  assume,  as  their  fundamental  and  essential  prin¬ 
ciple,  that  the  supreme  object  of  all  right  action  and  character 
is  something  to  be  acquired  and  possessed,  not  a  person  to  be 
trusted  and  served.  Or,  stated  with  psychological  exactness,  that 
this  is  the  object  of  the  right  supreme  choice.  This  involves  two 
fundamental  errors  :  the  first  is  a  false  conception  of  the  right 
supreme  and  ultimate  object  of  human  action ;  the  second  is  a 
false  conception  of  the  action  itself.  The  first  error  is  that  the 
ultimate  and  supreme  object  of  human  action  is  not  a  person  or 
persons,  but  an  object  to  be  got  and  possessed.  The  second 
error  is  that  the  human  action  itself  consists  only  in  getting,  pos¬ 
sessing,  and  using ;  whereas  the  fact  is  that  human  action  is  both 
receptive  and  productive,  both  getting  and  imparting,  both  taking 
in  and  putting  forth ;  and  that  in  these  two  forms  as  directed  to 
persons,  it  consists  in  acts  of  trust  and  service.  On  account  of 
these  errors,  fundamental  and  essential  in  all  these  theories,  they 
are  all  open  to  the  following  criticisms. 

They  all  contradict  the  real  principle  of  the  law  as  declared  by 
Christ.  It  is  not  a  command  to  love  health,  or  wealth,  or  know¬ 
ledge,  or  truth,  or  beauty,  or  holiness,  or  happiness ;  but  to  love 
God  as  supreme  with  all  the  heart  and  our  neighbor  as  ourselves. 
Words  could  not  declare  more  explicitly  that  the  object  of  love  or 
choice,  which  is  required  in  the  law  as  the  primary  essence  of  all 
virtue,  is  persons  to  be  trusted  and  served,  not  anything  to  be 
acquired,  possessed,  and  used. 

These  theories  are  also  in  contradiction  to  a  fundamental  prin¬ 
ciple  of  true  ethics.  Kant  has  shown  that  the  “  realm  of  ends  ” 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


149 


is  the  realm  of  personality.  All  true  ethics  concur  in  teaching 
that  a  person  and  only  a  person  is  an  end  in  himself  to  be  trusted 
and  served ;  never  an  object  to  be  acquired,  possessed,  and  used. 
That  which  is  impersonal  can  never  be  an  end  in  itself.  It  is 
always  subordinate  to  the  ends  of  personality.  The  object  of  the 
supreme  choice  must,  therefore,  be  a  person  or  persons.  But 
these  theories  present  as  the  supreme  object  of  love  and  of  all 
action  that  which  is,  and  in  the  nature  of  things  must  be,  subordi¬ 
nate.  Whatever  is  to  be  acquired,  possessed,  and  used,  must  be 
subordinate  to  an  ulterior  end.  The  question  remains  to  be  an¬ 
swered,  For  whom  is  this  object  to  be  acquired  and  by  whom 
is  it  to  be  possessed  and  enjoyed?  It  must  be  subordinate  also 
because,  according  to  true  ethics,  all  which  may  rightfully  be  ac¬ 
quired  and  possessed  must  be  something  impersonal ;  all  the  im¬ 
personal  exists  for  the  higher  ends  of  the  personal  and  spiritual 
system.  Personal  beings  alone  exist  as  ends  in  themselves.  They 
are  to  trust  and  serve  God  and  one  another. 

It  must  be  added  that  these  theories  present,  as  the  supreme 
object  of  action,  an  object  which  is  impossible  and  unthinkable. 
Whether  it  be  happiness  or  holiness,  it  is  an  abstraction  which 
cannot  exist  nor  be  thought  as  existing  except  as  the  quality  or 
condition  of  a  being.  Language  cannot  be  framed  to  declare 
that  happiness  or  holiness  is  the  supreme  end  of  action  without 
conveying  the  idea  that  it  is  the  happiness  or  holiness  of  some 
person.  One  cannot  seek  happiness  or  holiness  for  nobody. 
Accordingly,  the  ethical  theory  founded  on  hedonism  has  been 
divided  into  two ;  and  this  division  rests  on  the  answer  to  the 
question,  for  whom  the  happiness  is  sought.  This  is  historical 
confirmation  by  hedonists  themselves  of  the  truth  that  the  choice 
of  happiness  must  be  subordinate,  that  the  quality  or  condition  of 
happiness  cannot  be  separated  from  the  person  for  whom  it  is 
sought ;  and  that  the  supreme  and  ultimate  object  of  the  action 
can  be  found  only  in  the  person  for  whom  the  happiness  is  sought. 
This  division  has  not  appeared  in  the  history  of  the  theory  of 
rectitude.  But  it  must  appear  whenever  that  theory  is  thought 
through.  In  fact,  when,  in  speaking  of  a  person’s  seeking  any¬ 
thing  without  specifying  for  whom,  it  is  always  understood  that  he 
is  seeking  it  for  himself.  This  was  the  original  assumption  of  the 
Epicurean  theory.  And  the  theory  of  rectitude,  not  specifying 
for  whom  the  holiness  chosen  for  its  own  sake  is  sought,  is  always 


150  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


understood  to  mean  that  the  person  is  required  to  seek  his  own 
holiness  as  his  chief  end. 

This  is  a  universe  of  concrete  reality.  Knowledge  is  onto¬ 
logical,  the  knowledge  of  beings  in  their  varied  powers,  receptivi¬ 
ties,  conditions,  and  relations.  So  in  ethics  we  are  dealing  with 
the  concrete  reality  of  persons  and  their  reciprocal  relations,  — 
with  men  in  their  real  relations  to  God  and  to  one  another.  We 
do  not  love  abstractions.  I  wish  to  make  my  neighbor  happy  ;  but 
I  do  not  love  my  neighbor’s  happiness,  I  love  him.  I  wish  to 
bring  him  to  repentance ;  but  I  do  not  love  his  repentance,  I 
love  him.  Therefore,  these  theories,  in  requiring  the  pursuit  of 
happiness  or  of  holiness  for  its  own  sake  as  the  chief  end  of  action, 
require  the  pursuit  of  abstractions  without  concrete  reality.  And 
so  far  as  they  do  this,  they  are  without  real  meaning.  They  exem¬ 
plify  and  perpetuate  that  dealing  with  empty  abstractions  with 
which  theology  has  so  commonly,  and  not  always  unjustly,  been 
reproached.  But  true  ethics  and  theology  deal  with  the  most 
real  and  fundamental  of  all  concrete  realities. 

2.  In  addition  to  the  errors  already  mentioned,  and  common 
to  all  three  of  the  theories  of  the  first  class,  the  following  are 
inherent  in  each  of  the  two  hedonistic  theories. 

They  are  founded  on  hedonism,  —  the  doctrine  that  the  good 
consists  of  pleasure,  enjoyment,  or  happiness,  and  that  the 
highest  good,  the  summuin  bonum ,  is  determined  only  empirically 
by  the  quantity  of  enjoyment  as  to  duration  and  intensity,  —  all 
pleasure  or  enjoyment  being  considered  the  same  in  kind  and  of 
equal  worth,  and  so  capable  of  being  added  in  one  sum.  The 
ethical  theories  founded  on  hedonism  carry  in  them  all  the  errors 
involved  in  that  theory  of  the  good.1 

It  has  already  been  shown  that  these  two  theories  as  now  held, 
have  transcended  the  original  hedonism  by  recognizing  and 
answering  the  question,  For  whom  is  the  happiness  sought?  for 
the  first  asserts  that  happiness  is  sought  for  self ;  and  the  second 
asserts  that  it  is  sought  for  all.  But  they  both  still  retain,  as  act¬ 
ually  held,  many  of  the  errors  of  the  original  system. 

They  both  fail  to  give  any  independent  basis  for  law  and  right. 
They  derive  the  idea  of  law  and  the  right  from  the  idea  of  the 
good  as  defined  above ;  whereas  the  good  must  be  defined  from 
the  true  and  the  right.  By  this  error  law  is  divested  of  all  author- 
1  See  “  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,”  pp.  258-266. 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW  1 5  I 

ity,  of  all  which  constitutes  it  law  and  makes  its  commands  im¬ 
perative  and  obligatory.  It  can  no  longer  say,  “Thou  shalt,”  and 
“  Thou  oughtest,”  but  only,  “  It  is  for  your  interest  to  do  it,” 
“  You  will  find  more  pleasure  in  doing  it  than  in  not  doing  it.” 
This  involves  the  denial  of  the  absolute  Reason  in  which  all  truth 
and  law  are  eternal,  and  in  accordance  with  which  the  universe  is 
constituted ;  and  the  denial  that  man  is  so  constituted  in  the  like¬ 
ness  of  God  that  he  knows  himself  to  be  under  law,  under  obliga¬ 
tion  to  do  duty.  Thus  it  involves  the  subversion  of  the  whole 
moral  system. 

It  follows  that  these  theories  leave  man  without  any  available 
standard  by  which  to  determine  what  is  the  highest  good.  In  a 
universe  constituted  according  to  truth  and  law  eternal  in  the  ab¬ 
solute  Reason,  and  realizing  and  expressing  the  archetype  of  God’s 
wisdom  and  love,  it  is  the  truth  and  law  of  reason  which  must 
determine  what  good  is  possible  and  in  what  it  consists.  But 
these  theories  teach  that  the  law  is  derived  from  the  good.  Mr. 
Bentham  said,  “  There  ought  to  be  no  such  word  as  Ought.” 1 
Then  what  the  good  is  can  be  determined  only  empirically ;  all 
happiness  is  the  same  in  kind ;  and  the  superior  good  is  not 
superior  in  kind  but  only  in  quantity ;  and  what  it  is  can  be 
known  only  by  ascertaining  through  some  empirical  process  what 
quantity  of  pleasure  in  the  whole  of  the  person’s  existence  would 
be  insured  as  the  result  of  different  actions  or  lines  of  action  open 
to  him  at  any  time.  But  it  is  evident  that  no  finite  mind  by  any 
empirical  process  can  solve  this  problem ;  one  cannot  thus  know 
in  advance  all  the  results  of  an  action  for  his  whole  existence,  or 
even  for  a  few  months  or  weeks  or  days.  And  besides  this,  hap¬ 
piness  has  no  fixed  objective  reality,  but  is  wholly  relative  to  the 
desires,  tastes,  and  character  of  the  person.  The  proverb  “What 
is  one  man’s  meat  is  another  man’s  poison  ”  is  true  of  man  in  all 
his  many-sided  being,  in  the  possibilities  of  diversified  and  recip¬ 
rocally  exclusive  enjoyments,  and  throughout  his  endless  existence 
and  activity.  What  a  person  enjoys,  what  he  seeks  as  his  good, 
depends  on  his  character  and  his  natural  disposition  and  capaci¬ 
ties.  A  person  of  one  character  shrinks  with  aversion  and  horror 
from  what  another  of  an  opposite  character  seeks  as  the  source  of 
his  highest  enjoyment.  These  theories  also  assume  that  pleasures 

1  He  cannot  avoid  using  the  very  word  which  he  would  exclude  from 


use. 


152  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


and  enjoyments  are  all  of  the  same  kind,  all  on  the  same  plane, 
and  of  the  same  intrinsic  worth,  and  that  so  it  is  possible  to  add 
them  up  into  a  total  quantity,  measuring  each,  not  by  its  sources, 
quality,  and  worth,  but  only  by  quantity  as  to  intensity  and  dura¬ 
tion.  This  is  entirely  contrary  to  the  facts  and  to  the  common 
consciousness  of  man.  There  are  many  enjoyments  which  a  right- 
minded  man  would  be  ashamed  of  as  unworthy  of  a  rational  and 
virtuous  man.  Therefore,  without  a  standard  of  truth  and  law 
eternal  in  the  absolute  and  immutable  Reason,  and  without  reason 
and  conscience  in  man  responsive  to  that  eternal  law,  by  which  to 
judge  of  the  worth  of  objects  of  pursuit  and  sources  of  enjoyment, 
it  is  impossible  for  a  person  to  determine  what  will  give  the  high¬ 
est  happiness.  Suppose  an  Ahriman,  almighty  to  do  evil,  should 
offer  to  a  sinner  an  eternal  sensuous  paradise  in  reward  for  a  self¬ 
ish  and  sensual  life,  and  the  sinner  is  to  choose  between  it  and 
the  eternal  spiritual  and  holy  heaven  offered  by  God  in  reward 
for  a  life  of  self-sacrificing  love.  Hedonism  gives  no  principle  or 
law  by  which  he  can  determine  which  it  is  expedient  for  him  to 
choose.  He  can  decide  only  in  an  empirical  way.  He  must 
decide  from  his  own  subjective  point  of  view.  And  he  has  always 
found  his  enjoyment  only  in  a  sensual  and  selfish  life.  The  spir¬ 
itual  life  of  self-renouncing  love  has  always  been  repulsive  to  him, 
and  he  feels  himself  incapable  of  enjoyment  in  it.  Thus  the  dis¬ 
tinction  between  right  and  wrong  has  no  immovable  foundation. 
The  distinction  floats  on  the  waves  of  subjective  feeling  and  char¬ 
acter,  and  on  calculations  of  expediency  made  under  the  domina¬ 
tion  of  that  subjective  feeling  and  character. 

It  is  also  to  be  considered  that  non-theistic  theories  of  the 
universe,  when  they  do  not  deny  moral  distinctions  altogether, 
have  shown  a  marked  affinity  for  one  or  the  other  of  the  hedonis¬ 
tic  theories  of  ethics.  Intellectual  speculation,  in  whatever  denials 
it  may  issue,  does  not  annihilate  the  person’s  moral  constitution, 
nor  extinguish  at  once  all  moral  ideas  and  sentiments.  Hence, 
though  he  denies  God  and  all  that  can  give  a  reasonable  ground 
for  moral  distinctions  and  law,  he  still  feels  the  necessity  of  con¬ 
structing  some  theory  of  morals.  Then,  since  he  has  specula¬ 
tively  rejected  all  basis  for  authoritative  law,  he  has  no  resource 
but  hedonism.  Though  he  has  speculatively  rejected  the  author¬ 
ity  of  law,  yet  in  his  moral  constitution  he  has  some  sense  of  the 
real  principle  of  the  law.  Knowing  himself  in  a  moral  system  he 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


153 


feels  that  he  ought  not  to  live  for  himself  alone.  Then  he  may- 
rise  above  the  Egoistic  hedonism  and  adopt  utilitarianism  as  his 
theory  of  ethics.  More  commonly,  however,  overlooking  both  the 
real  and  the  formal  principles  of  the  law,  he  abides  in  the  theory 
that  every  one  should  make  his  own  enjoyment  his  supreme  and 
ultimate  end.  The  theory  that  man  has  knowledge  only  of  the 
impressions  of  sense  has  been  called  subjective  materialism.  It 
implies  that  whatever  seems  true  to  a  person  is  true  to  him.  It 
gives  no  principle  which  can  be  a  basis  for  ethics.  If  applied  to 
ethics  it  could  give  only  the  maxim,  Whatever  seems  right 
to  a  person  is  right  to  him.  But  the  right  could  be  only  the 
pleasant  or  agreeable ;  and  the  maxim  becomes,  Whatever  is 
pleasant  or  agreeable  to  a  person  is  right  to  him.  And  because 
knowledge  is  assumed  to  be  only  of  impressions  of  sense,  the  idea 
of  the  good  or  well-being  as  anything  different  from  these  would 
be  excluded.  Accordingly  Aristippus  “  taught  expressly  that  the 
true  aim  is  not  happiness,  which  is  the  permanent  result  of  many 
single  sensations  of  pleasure,  but  the  individual  concrete  sensa¬ 
tions  of  pleasure  themselves.”  1  Thus  non-theistic  theories  of  the 
universe,  if  they  recognize  the  fact  of  man’s  consciousness  of  duty 
and  of  right  and  wrong,  must  accept  some  form  of  hedonistic 
ethics.  But  both  the  hedonistic  theories  are  logically  incompati¬ 
ble  with  the  true  theistic  conception  of  the  universe,  because  they 
deny  that  truth  and  law  are  eternal  in  the  absolute  Reason,  and 
thus  antecedent  to  the  universe,  determinative  of  its  constitution, 
and  so  determinative  of  what  the  good  is  which  is  possible  in 
the  universe,  and  of  the  ways  in  which  it  should  be  sought  and 
obtained. 

3.  The  foregoing  objections  are  all  valid  against  both  of  the 
hedonistic  theories.  I  proceed  to  consider  objections  peculiar 
to  the  self-love  theory,  or  Egoistic  Hedonism. 

It  declares  self-love,  or  the  desire  of  one’s  own  happiness,  to  be 
the  ultimate  motive  of  all  rational  action.  This  motive  is  inher¬ 
ent  in  the  constitution  of  a  rational  being ;  no  person  can  prefer 
misery  to  enjoyment  when  these  two  are  the  only  objects  com¬ 
pared.  Therefore,  this  theory  identifies  moral  character  with  a 
constitutional  motive  or  impulse.  Therefore,  if  consistent  with 
itself,  it  must  regard  moral  character  as  a  natural  affection  or  dispo¬ 
sition  ;  as  in  the  nature,  not  in  a  choice  of  the  will ;  as  a  disposition 

1  Lange,  “  Geschichte  des  Materialismus,”  Bk.  I.  sect.  i.  chap.  ii. 


154  THE  LORD  of  all  in  moral  government 


born  in  us,  not  determined  by  us  in  the  free  action  of  the  will. 
If  the  theorist  denies  this  and  claims  that  he  considers  character 
a  free  choice  of  the  highest  happiness,  the  answer  is  that  the  funda¬ 
mental  postulate  of  his  theory  makes  moral  freedom  impossible, 
because  he  resolves  all  motives  into  the  desire  of  happiness  and 
thus  makes  this  the  one  only  motive  of  all  action.  But  if  man  is 
constituted  susceptible  to  only  one  motive,  then  he  lacks  the  con¬ 
stitutional  powers  and  susceptibilities  essential  to  a  free  moral 
agent,  and  free  choice  is  impossible.  His  character  is  determined 
for  him  in  his  nature,  not  by  him  in  his  free  will.  If  it  is  replied 
that  the  choice  is  between  happiness  and  unhappiness,  or,  what 
implies  the  same,  between  a  greater  and  a  less  degree  of  happi¬ 
ness,  the  answer  is  that,  since  man’s  only  motive  to  act  is  the 
desire  of  happiness,  there  can  be  no  motive  to  choose  unhappi¬ 
ness  in  preference  to  happiness,  or  a  less  degree  of  happiness  to  a 
greater.  It  follows  that  man,  driven  by  one  only  motive,  is  not  a 
free  agent. 

This  theory  gives  no  basis  for  a  theodicy.  To  the  question, 
What  is  God’s  chief  end  in  creating  and  governing  the  universe? 
the  answer  is,  To  make  himself  happy.  Why  does  God  punish 
the  wicked?  Because  he  enjoys  it.  Why  does  he  not  do  more,  or 
otherwise  than  he  does,  to  prevent  sin?  Because  it  would  make 
him  unhappy.  There  is  no  law  eternal  in  the  divine  reason  regu¬ 
lating  the  action  of  the  divine  will,  determining  the  constitution 
of  the  universe  and  the  good  possible  in  it.  On  the  contrary,  God 
is  conceived  as  a  Great  Nature  having  wants  and  acting  only  for 
their  satisfaction  and  the  happiness  attained  in  it. 

Another  objection  to  this  theory  is  that  the  character  which  it 
requires  as  virtuous  is  not  essentially  distinguishable  from  selfish¬ 
ness.  The  definitions  of  virtue  and  of  vice  are  in  the  same 
words.  Using  the  phraseology  of  the  proper  psychological  defi¬ 
nition  of  character,  this  theory  would  define  both  virtue  and  vice 
to  be  alike  the  choice  of  one’s  own  happiness  as  the  supreme  and 
ultimate  object  of  all  action.  Whatever  terminology  is  used,  in 
both  virtuous  action  and  in  vicious  the  supreme  and  ultimate  ob¬ 
ject  of  pursuit  is  one  and  the  same,  the  person’s  own  happiness. 
Here,  the  objection  may  be  urged  that  there  is  a  difference, 
because  virtue  is  the  choice  of  the  superior  and  vice  of  the 
inferior  good.  The  answer  is  that  the  theory  admits  no  inde¬ 
pendent  law  of  right,  establishing  a  criterion  by  which  to  dis- 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


155 


tinguish  the  superior  good  from  the  inferior.  They  can  be 
distinguished  only  by  some  attempt  to  estimate  empirically  the 
quantity  of  enjoyment.  There  is  no  place  in  the  theory  for  right¬ 
eousness  and  justice,  but  only  for  expediency.  Therefore  there 
is  no  distinction  of  moral  character  between  virtue  and  vice. 
The  distinction  is  only  in  the  greater  or  less  shrewdness  of  the 
person  in  selecting  the  objects  and  pursuits  which  will  impart  the 
most  happiness.  The  character  required  is  in  its  essence  selfish¬ 
ness.  It  is  a  matter  of  common  observation  that  when  one 
begins  to  calculate  the  personal  advantages  and  disadvantages  of 
a  wrong  action,  his  virtue  is  already  faltering  and  he  is  likely  to 
do  the  wrong  act.  But  the  theory  under  consideration  excludes 
all  immediate  appeal  to  law  and  to  an  intuitive  sense  of  obligation 
and  right,  and  requires  in  every  instance  a  calculation  of  the 
person’s  own  gain  or  loss  to  accrue  from  the  action  and  a  deter¬ 
mination  in  favor  of  the  action  which  will  insure  to  him  the 
greater  gain.  By  no  keenness  of  discrimination  can  this  be  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  selfish  action. 

Therefore,  this  theory  gives  no  place  for  the  profound  sense  of 
sinfulness,  guilt,  and  ill-desert,  for  shame  and  self-reproach  in  the 
consciousness  of  deeds  and  character  unworthy  and  base,  nor 
for  aspiration  for  a  higher  and  nobler  life  ;  and  no  explanations 
of  facts  that  such  feelings  are  common  in  the  consciousness  of 
men,  especially  under  the  influence  of  Christianity.  It  can  recog¬ 
nize  in  the  sinner  only  the  consciousness  of  mistake  or  folly,  and 
in  the  virtuous,  the  consciousness  of  superior  discernment. 

The  theory  excludes  all  motives  to  noble  deeds  and  to  the 
heroism  of  self-sacrificing  love.  Leonidas,  Regulus,  and  the  thou¬ 
sands  who  have  sacrificed  life  for  their  country,  or  for  any  great 
and  noble  end,  can  hardly  be  supposed  to  have  done  it  for  their 
own  enjoyment.  It  requires  no  little  ingenuity  to  explain  such 
deeds  on  the  basis  of  Epicureanism.  But  the  advocates  of 
that  theory  have  not  shrunk  from  attempting  it.  Cicero  argues 
that,  when  Torquatus,  a  consul,  put  his  own  son  to  death  for  a 
breach  of  discipline  in  the  army,  he  could  not  have  done  so 
painful  an  act  for  his  own  pleasure.  Torquatus,  a  descendant 
of  the  consul,  whom  Cicero  introduces  as  the  advocate  of  Epi¬ 
cureanism,  replies  that  it  was  necessary  to  preserve  the  disci¬ 
pline  of  the  army  and  thus  “  to  preserve  the  safety  of  the 
state  in  which  the  consul  knew  that  his  own  safety  was  in- 


156  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


volved.”  1  To  show  that  deeds  of  heroic  self-sacrifice  might  be 
done  from  a  regard  to  one’s  own  happiness,  it  was  further  argued 
that  one  might  prefer  the  intense,  though  brief,  joy  of  a  great 
and  heroic  deed  costing  his  life,  to  the  tame  pleasures  of  an  ordi¬ 
nary  lifetime. 

But  if  such  ingenious  arguments  prove  the  possibility  of  doing 
great  and  noble  deeds  of  self-sacrifice  for  one’s  own  happiness, 
they  prove  it  only  by  stripping  from  the  deeds  all  which  makes 
them  great  and  noble.  Here  we  see  again  the  exclusion  from 
ethics  of  reason  and  conscience  as  presenting  aiqy  fixed  law  or 
standard  of  right ;  reason  not  less  than  will  is  subjected  to  the 
one  all-Mominating  impulse,  the  desire  of  personal  enjoyment. 
No  one  has  stated  this  more  explicitly  than  Hume  :  “  Reason  is 
and  ought  only  to  be  the  slave  of  the  passions,  and  can  never 
pretend  to  any  other  office  than  to  serve  and  obey  them  .  .  .  . 
It  is  not  contrary  to  reason  to  prefer  the  destruction  of  the  whole 
world  to  the  scratching  of  my  finger.  It  is  not  contrary  to  reason 
for  me  to  choose  my  total  ruin  to  prevent  the  least  uneasiness  of 
an  Indian  or  person  wholly  unknown  to  me.”  2  He  means  that 
man  must  follow  his  passions  and  desires  and  that  the  only  office 
of  reason  is  to  ascertain  whether  the  objects  of  these  passions  and 
desires  really  exist  and  what  is  the  surest  way  to  gratify  them.  In 
accordance  with  this  type  of  ethics  Volney  sums  up  the  whole 
duty  of  man  :  “  All  wisdom,  all  perfection,  all  law,  all  virtue,  all 
philosophy  consist  in  the  practice  of  the  following  axioms,  founded 
on  our  organization  :  Take  care  of  thyself ;  educate  thyself ;  re¬ 
strain  thyself;  live  for  thy  friends  (tes  semblables ,  those  of  thy 
own  set)  in  order  that  they  may  live  for  thee.”. 3 

Nor  is  there,  according  to  this  hedonistic  theory,  any  motive  to 
nobler  deeds  and  self-sacrificing  heroism  in  the  assurance  that  in 
the  far  distant  future  all  men  will  be  actuated  by  unselfish  love. 
Mr.  Spencer  predicts,  as  the  result  of  evolution,  a  race  of  men 
who  will  find  as  much  pleasure  in  serving  others  as  in  serving 

1  De  Finibus,  lib.  i.  7.  Opera,  Boston,  1816,  vol.  xiv.  p.  145. 

2  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  Bk.  ii.  part  iii.  sect.  3.  Philosophical 
Works,  Little,  Brown,  &  Co.,  1854,  vol.  ii.  pp.  166,  167,  168. 

3  “  La  Loi  Naturelle,  011  Catechisme  du  Citoyen  Frai^ais,”  icmo.  Paris, 
Pan  deuxieme  de  la  Republique.  His  conception  of  friendship  is  the  same 
with  that  ridiculed  in  the  familiar  rhyme  : 

“Tickle  me,  Charley,  tickle  me,  do  ; 

You  tickle  me  and  I  ’ll  tickle  you.” 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


157 


themselves.  But  to  the  people  of  this  generation  this  promise 
can  be  no  motive  to  an  unselfish  life.  They  still  remain  in  a  far 
lower  stage  of  the  evolution.  To  them  the  law  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest  has  as  yet  no  meaning  in  ethics  except  that  might 
makes  right.  To  such  unevolved  men  the  only  and  ruling  motive 
is  the  desire  of  their  own  personal  enjoyment.  The  fact  that  in 
the  immensely  distant  future  men  will  be  happy  in  unselfish  living 
and  loving,  can  add  nothing  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  men  of  to¬ 
day  and  therefore,  according  to  this  theory,  cannot  be  a  motive 
to  any  self-sacrificing  service  of  men. 

Because  this  theory  practically  tends  to  suppress  the  motives 
to  noble  and  heroic  action,  its  tendency  is  to  prevent  activity 
and  energy,  to  restrain  men  from  forming  far-reaching  plans  and 
undertaking  great  and  difficult  enterprises  for  great  and  noble 
ends.  One  whose  supreme  aim  is  to  live  in  ease  and  self- 
indulgence  and  to  enjoy  life,  will  be  deterred  from  plans  and 
enterprises  which  require  continual  earnestness  of  action  and 
concentration  of  energy,  ceaseless  watchfulness,  forecast,  and  hard 
work,  and  expose  to  risks  and  dangers.  He  shrinks  from  the 
activity  essential  to  his  own  development  and  his  highest  achieve¬ 
ments.  Thus  the  practical  tendency  of  this  theory  is  to  prevent 
the  development  of  man’s  highest  powers  and  richest  suscepti¬ 
bilities,  to  debilitate  and  contract  him,  to  induce  in  him  softness, 
feebleness,  and  inefficiency,  and  to  cause  in  him  degeneracy  in¬ 
stead  of  growth  and  progress. 

The  assertion  that  the  desire  of  happiness  is  the  ultimate 
motive  of  all  action  is  contradicted  by  the  common  conscious¬ 
ness  of  mankind.  The  consciousness  of  acting  from  the  desire 
of  happiness  is  comparatively  rare.  One  can  have  no  enjoyment 
of  any  object  unless  he  first  has  some  desire  or  affection  for  the 
object  itself.  Taking  food  gives  no  pleasure  but  only  disgust  to 
one  who  has  no  appetite  for  it ;  and  the  appetite  must  be  for  the 
food  itself  as  prerequisite  to  any  enjoyment  in  eating  it.  Men 
are  moved  to  action  by  desires  or  affections  for  specific  objects. 
Hence  the  many-sidedness  of  man  and  the  many  lines  of  action 
in  which  he  can  be  intensely  interested.  But  one  cannot  long 
live  a  life  of  gratification  of  desires  and  selfish  indulgence,  before 
he  finds  that  his  desires  grow  faster  than  he  can  satisfy  them  ; 
and  thus  he  falls  into  chronic  discontent. 

Accordingly  Epicurus  himself  aimed  at  a  life  of  simple  pleas- 


158  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


ures,  at  tranquillity,  freedom  from  unrest  and  pain,  rather  than  at 
high  positive  enjoyment.  Elis  highest  type  of  life  was  his  con¬ 
ception  of  the  gods,  blessed  in  inaction  and  perfect  and  tranquil 
rest.  Elence  he  refused  to  enter  into  political  contests,  and  de¬ 
clined  all  public  office  and  honors  from  the  city.  Ele  would  not 
disturb  his  tranquillity  to  show  any  hatred  towards  his  enemies  or 
to  try  to  reform  the  wicked.  Though  he  esteemed  intellectual 
enjoyment,  he  thought  geometry  demanded  too  much  effort,  and 
would  not  strain  his  faculties  in  any  intellectual  contests.  In  his 
own  life  his  ethics  stood  opposed  to  all  earnestness,  excitement, 
and  energy  in  achievement.  Thus  this  life,  devoted  to  seeking 
enjoyment,  resolves  itself  into  a  life  of  continual  self-suppression 
and  self-denial.  It  was  at  the  best  a  perpetual  shrinking  and 
hiding  from  pain  and  discomfort.  It  is  a  demonstration,  or  better 
perhaps  an  object-lesson,  teaching  that  even  if  one  devotes  his 
life  supremely  and  solely  to  enjoying  himself,  the  enjoyment  is 
possible  only  by  continual  self-restraint  and  self-denial. 

But  the  majority  will  not  be  content  with  such  simple  pleas¬ 
ures,  amounting  to  little  more  than  absence  of  pain.  The  com¬ 
mon  Epicurean  is  more  likely  to  be  an  epicure,  which  Epicurus 
never  was.  Thus,  if  he  has  the  means  of  self-gratification,  he 
falls  into  selfishness  of  the  most  contemptible  sort,  in  comparison 
with  which  the  most  diligent  industry  and  the  hardest  work  in 
getting  a  living,  even  though  not  actuated  by  Christian  love,  is 
comparatively  respectable.  His  daily  study  is  to  find  ways  of 
amusing  and  enjoying  himself.  He  becomes  a  dilettante  in  every 
pursuit.  He  falls  into  a  dainty,  namby-pamby  life.  The  pleas^ 
ures  pall  on  his  soul  and  his  life  becomes  faded,  spiritless,  and 
vapid ;  it  is  blase ,  burned  over  by  blazing  desires,  which  have  left 
only  ashes.  He  “  liveth  in  pleasure,”  and  “  is  dead  while  he 
liveth.”  In  like  manner,  in  whatever  line  the  activity  may  be 
directed,  a  life  actuated  by  the  supreme  desire  of  enjoyment  must 
burn  itself  out  to  ashes. 

Such  a  life  also  induces  a  morbid  subjectivity,  self-conscious¬ 
ness,  and  introspection  ;  a  fastidiousness  which  criticises  everything 
instead  of  enjoying  it.  Unconsciousness  is  a  mark  of  health  ;  a 
healthy  person  seldom  feels  his  pulse  or  asks,  Am  I  well?  One 
who  is  always  seeking  enjoyment  is  likely  to  be  often  thinking 
whether  he  is  happy ;  he  is  likely  to  be  a  spiritual  dyspeptic, 
always  feeling  his  own  pulse.  When  a  person  is  really  happy  he 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


159 


is  not  thinking  of  it.  His  interest  in  the  work  he  is  doing  and 
the  results  he  is  achieving  is  so  fresh  and  absorbing  that  he  does 
not  think  whether  he  is  happy  or  not.  When  he  begins  con¬ 
sciously  to  seek  enjoyment,  it  escapes  his  grasp  ;  his  pleasures  lose 
their  freshness,  he  falls  into  discontent,  he  begins  to  ask,  Is  life 
worth  living? 

And  thus  this  ethical  theory  legitimately  issues  in  pessimism. 
Epicurus  taught  explicitly  a  fundamental  principle  of  pessimism, 
that  pleasure  is  only  negative,  the  absence  of  pain.  And  the 
theory  rests  also  on  another  fundamental  principle  of  pessimism, 
that  happiness  consists  only  in  the  gratification  of  desires ;  but 
these,  because  they  grow  by  what  they  feed  on,  can  never  be 
satisfied. 

Such  is  this  theory  in  its  original  and  real  form  as  Epicurean¬ 
ism.  In  reference  to  it  Carlyle  exclaimed :  “  If  what  thou 
namest  happiness  be  our  true  aim,  then  we  are  all  astray. 
Behold,  thou  art  faithless,  outcast,  and  the  universe  is  —  the 
Devil’s. ”  Bunsen  says :  “  All  the  nobler  natures  that  have 
adopted  the  theory  of  the  Useful  and  Agreeable,  become  unfaith¬ 
ful  to  it  in  actual  life.  They  find  in  themselves  something  which 
in  critical  moments  impels  them  to  sacrifice  even  life  itself,  — 
which  is  to  them,  as  the  necessary  condition  of  all  besides,  the 
highest  good,  —  to  something  higher,  whether  it  be  called 
country,  or  freedom,  or  honor.  Selfishness,  sitting  on  the  throne 
of  reason,  even  if  she  adorn  herself  with  the  sentiment  of  honor 
as  a  substitute  for  virtue,  works  nothing  but  ruin,  even  for  the 
individual.”  1 

Writers,  who  have  held  this  hedonistic  theory,  in  view  of 
its  legitimate  applications  have  found  difficulty  in  maintaining 
it  consistently  with  the  fundamental  principles  of  reason  and 
observed  facts  in  human  history. 

According  to  Helvetius,  the  good  of  man  is  physical  pleasure  ; 
remorse  is  only  “  the  criminal’s  foresight  of  the  physical  evil 
to  which  he  would  be  exposed  if  the  crime  should  be  discovered.” 
In  reference  to  this  even  Diderot  asks  :  “  What  does  he  propose 
who  sacrifices  his  life?  Were  Codrus  and  Decius  going  to  seek 
for  some  physical  enjoyment  in  a  sepulchre  at  the  bottom 
of  an  abyss?”  Rousseau  says:  “Every  one,  they  say,  seeks 
the  public  good  for  his  own  interest.  But  how  comes  it  about 

1  God  in  History,  Bk.  i.  sect.  v. ;  Winkworth’s  Trans,  vol.  i.  p.  22. 


l60  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

that  an  upright  man  seeks  it  to  his  own  injury?  Who  goes  to 
meet  death  for  his  own  interest?  Without  doubt  no  one  acts 
except  for  his  own  good.  But  if  it  is  not  moral  good  of 
which  one  takes  account,  he  will  never  explain  by  self-interest 
any  actions  except  those  of  the  wicked.  It  is  to  be  believed  one 
would  never  attempt  to  carry  it  further.  It  would  be  too 
abominable  a  philosophy  in  which  the  only  difficulty  would 
be  in  accounting  for  the  self-sacrificing  acts  of  the  virtuous ; 
in  which  we  should  be  forced  to  disparage  Socrates  and  to 
calumniate  Regulus.”  Hence  he  sees  the  necessity  of  recogniz¬ 
ing  moral  law  attested  by  reason  and  conscience,  even  though 
every  one  does  seek  his  own  good.  He  exclaims  :  “  Conscience  ! 
conscience  !  divine  instinct,  immortal  and  heavenly  voice ; 
assured  guide  of  a  being  ignorant  and  limited,  but  intelligent 
and  free ;  infallible  judge  of  good  and  evil,  that  makest  the 
man  like  God  !  it  is  thou  that  causest  the  superiority  of  his 
nature  and  the  morality  of  his  actions ;  without  thee  I  know 
nothing  in  me  which  elevates  me  above  the  brutes,  except 
the  sad  privilege  of  leading  myself  astray  from  error  to  error, 
by  the  aid  of  an  understanding  without  law  and  a  reasoning 
power  without  principle.”  1 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  not  a  few  Christian  theologians  have 
accepted  this  Self-Love  theory  as  the  basis  of  Christian  ethics. 
But  in  their  statement  of  it  they  recognize,  explicitly  or  implicitly, 
an  eternal  divine  law  incompatible  with  their  ethical  theory. 
They  define  right  character  as  primarily  an  elective  preference 
of  the  superior  good  to  an  inferior ;  and  a  wrong  character 
as  the  elective  preference  of  an  inferior  good  to  a  superior. 
This  definition  denotes  a  good,  not  merely  greater  or  less  in 
quantity,  but  superior  or  inferior  in  kind.  The  definition,  there¬ 
fore,  presupposes  a  standard  or  law  by  which  we  decide  which 
of  attainable  goods  is  worthiest  in  kind.  This  law  is  eternal 
in  God  and  antecedent  to  the  universe.  In  accordance  with 
it  God  determines  his  action  in  creating  and  governing  the 
universe,  determines  what  the  constitution  of  the  universe  as 
created  by  God  is,  and  what  good  is  possible  and  of  true  worth 
in  it.  This  is  an  element  of  Christian  thought  entirely  foreign 
to  the  hedonistic  theory  and  incompatible  with  it.  It  assumes 

1  Lmile,  ou  De  l’Lducation,  livre  iv.  pp.  343,  345 ;  ed.  Firmin  Didot 
freres,  Paris,  1862. 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW  l6l 

that  what  the  good  is  and  the  right  methods  of  seeking  it 
are  determined  by  antecedent  law.  Thus  it  wholly  sets  aside 
the  theory  that  the  idea  of  right  or  law  is  derived  from  the 
idea  of  the  good  considered  as  happiness ;  and  that  action 
is  right  because  it  insures  the  greatest  quantity  of  happiness. 

But  while  theoretically  the  egoistic  hedonism  is  modified 
by  the  recognition  of  God’s  law  and  of  other  Christian  elements 
of  thought,  in  its  practical  influence  it  is  rather  the  Christian 
thought  which  is  modified  by  the  theory. 

This  practical  influence  is  inseparable  from  their  own  statement 
of  their  doctrine.  The  superior  good  may  be  chosen  for  all 
as  well  as  for  self ;  but  even  if  the  good  of  all  is  chosen,  the 
ultimate  motive  of  the  choice  is  the  person’s  own  desire  of 
happiness.  Here  they  fall  back  into  the  original  form  of  the 
theory,  that  the  person’s  own  happiness  is  the  ultimate  object 
of  every  right  choice.  “  This  self-love  or  desire  of  happiness 
is  the  primary  cause  or  reason  of  all  acts  of  preference  or  choice 
which  fix  supremely  on  any  object  ....  The  being  constituted 
with  a  capacity  for  happiness  desires  to  be  happy ;  and  knowing 
that  he  is  capable  of  deriving  happiness  from  different  objects, 
considers  from  which  the  greatest  happiness  may  be  derived ;  and 
as  in  this  respect  he  judges  or  estimates  their  relative  value , 
so  he  chooses  or  prefers  the  one  or  the  other  as  his  chief  good.”  1 
This  doctrine  has  been  illustrated  by  supposing  a  person  to 
be  thirsty.  Then  among  all  drinks,  water,  milk,  tea,  coffee,  beer, 
and  other  liquids  he  can  choose  that  which  will  best  slake 
his  thirst.  He  chooses  water. 

Here  the  essential  characteristics  of  the  old  theory  reappear. 
The  one  motive  to  all  action  is  the  desire  of  happiness ;  and 
the  one  standard  of  determining  the  good  is  the  quantity  of 
enjoyment.  Therefore  the  fundamental  errors  of  the  theory 
reappear  and  retain  their  practical  influence.  Here  is  the 
psychological  error  that  the  one  ultimate  motive  of  all  action 
is  the  desire  of  happiness,  —  whereas  men  do  not  commonly 
act  consciously  from  the  desire  of  happiness.  They  are  subjects 
of  many  motives.  They  desire  specific  objects ;  they  cannot 
have  any  enjoyment  in  the  pursuit  or  possession  of  an  object 
unless  they  have  some  previous  desire  for  it.  Here  is  the  error 
that  all  action  consists  in  getting,  possessing,  and  using,  to  the 

1  The  Christian  Spectator,  March  1829,  p.  21. 

VOL.  II.  —  II 


1 62  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


exclusion  of  trusting  and  serving.  Here  is  the  restriction  of 
free  will.  For  as  thirst  is  not  a  matter  of  choice  but  of  constitu¬ 
tional  necessity,  so  also  is  the  desire  of  happiness.  One  cannot 
desire  misery  in  preference  to  happiness,  nor  a  less  degree  of 
happiness  in  preference  to  a  greater  —  these  alone  being  the 
objects  compared  —  any  more  than  he  can  create  or  quench  thirst 
by  an  act  of  will.  Hence  liberty  is  restricted  to  choosing,  among 
objects  which  promote  happiness,  that  which  will  impart  the 
greatest  quantity  of  enjoyment  or  will  most  effectually  satisfy 
the  desire  for  that  greater  enjoyment.  But  this  is  not,  like  thirst, 
a  desire  which  comes  and  goes  and  can  be  quenched  by  being 
satisfied ;  it  is  always  urgent  and  dominant.  If  now  the  theory 
takes  the  form  of  declaring  that  the  object  of  the  supreme 
choice  is  the  greatest  happiness,  it  identifies  moral  character 
with  a  constitutional  impulse  and  thus  identifies  itself  with  the 
doctrine  that  moral  character  is  primarily  a  constitutional  affec¬ 
tion  or  disposition.  And,  inasmuch  as  man  cannot  choose 
unhappiness  in  preference  to  happiness,  when  they  two  alone 
are  compared,  in  choosing  happiness  he  is  not  susceptible  of  any 
motive  to  the  contrary.  He  is  absolutely  dominated  by  his  con¬ 
stitutional  desire  for  the  greatest  happiness.  Then,  since  sin 
consists  in  choosing  a  less  good  in  preference  to  the  greater, 
sin  loses  its  moral  character  and  guilt  and  becomes  mere  ignor¬ 
ance  or  mistake  ;  and  man’s  moral  freedom  disappears.  Here 
also  is  the  explicit  avowal  that  the  right  choice  is  determined 
solely  by  the  quantity  of  happiness  :  “  he  considers  from  which 
the  greatest  happiness  may  be  derived.”  And  though  these 
theologians  recognize  the  law  of  God,  yet  the  inevitable  practi¬ 
cal  drift  of  their  teaching  is  that  the  idea  of  right  is  derived  from 
the  idea  of  the  greatest  happiness,  and  therefore  there  is  no  inde¬ 
pendent  law  of  right  which  determines  what  the  true  good  is  and 
regulates  the  methods  of  seeking  it. 

The  habit  of  thinking  of  getting,  possessing,  and  using,  as  the 
only  action  of  man,  has  led  theologians  to  speak  of  God  himself  as 
the  supreme  good.  In  the  paragraph,  from  which  I  have  quoted, 
from  the  “  Christian  Spectator,”  the  writer  also  says  :  “  In  every 
moral  being  who  forms  a  moral  character,  there  must  be  a  first  moral 
act  of  preference  or  choice.  This  must  respect  some  one  object, 
God  or  Mammon,  as  the  chief  good,  or  as  an  object  of  supreme 
affection.”  Here  God  is  declared  to  be  the  supreme  good,  and 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW  163 

to  be  the  object  of  supreme  affection  in  the  same  sense  in  which 
Mammon  is  the  chosen  good  and  the  object  of  supreme  affection 
to  the  sinner ;  an  object  to  be  acquired,  possessed  and  used  for 
his  own  enjoyment.  This  form  of  expression  is  not  confined  to 
advocates  of  the  self-love  theory  of  virtue.  It  is  used  by  Dr. 
Dorner,  and  is  not  uncommon  in  theological  writings.  It  carries 
in  it  the  idea  that  a  person  chooses  God  in  order  to  command 
and  use  him  for  his  own  advantage  and  enjoyment,  as  Aladdin 
commanded  and  used  the  Genius  of  the  Lamp.  It  presents  a 
religion  essentially  like  that  of  the  idolater  who  whips  his  idol 
when  it  does  not  do  for  him  what  he  has  asked.  This  form  of 
expression  may  be  explained  sometimes  as  an  ambiguous  and 
inexact  use  of  the  word  good.  But  it  could  not  have  gained  cur¬ 
rency  if  the  error  had  not  been  common  that  the  whole  action  of 
man  is  getting  and  using,  overlooking  the  fundamental  facts  that 
the  realm  of  ends  is  the  sphere  of  persons,  and  the  action  to  be 
directed  and  determined  by  the  supreme  choice  is  the  action  of 
trust  and  service  to  persons. 

Theologians  holding  the  self-love  theory  also  avail  themselves 
of  the  fact  of  immortality.  But  the  practical  tendency  of  their 
ethical  theory  is  to  fix  the  thought  mainly,  as  decisive  of  the 
choice,  on  the  quantity  of  enjoyment  proved  greatest  by  its  end¬ 
less  perpetuity,  with  no  other  criterion  by  which  to  distinguish 
the  character  of  the  person  and  the  sources  of  his  enjoyment  as 
worthy  or  unworthy.  And  this  tendency  has  been  manifested  in 
the  history  of  the  doctrine.  Its  influence  is  shown,  far  beyond 
those  who  have  formally  avowed  the  doctrine,  in  the  prevalence 
of  a  type  of  religion  whose  ruling  motive  is  the  desire  to  escape 
hell  and  to  get  safe  to  heaven.  Paley  says  :  “  Virtue  is  the  doing 
good  to  mankind,  in  obedience  to  the  will  of  God,  and  for  the 
sake  of  everlasting  happiness.”  “  In  this  inquiry  I  will  omit 
much  usual  declamation  on  the  dignity  and  capacity  of  our 
nature ;  the  superiority  of  the  soul  to  the  body,  of  the  rational 
to  the  animal  part  of  our  constitution ;  upon  the  worthiness, 
refinement,  and  delicacy  of  some  satisfactions,  or  the  meanness, 
grossness,  and  sensuality  of  others ;  because  I  hold  that  pleasures 
differ  in  nothing  but  in  continuance  and  intensity,  from  a  just 
computation  of  which  .  .  .  every  question  concerning  human 
happiness  must  receive  its  decision.”  Paley  alludes  to  the  com¬ 
mon  distinction  between  prudence  and  duty,  and  illustrates  it  by 


1 64  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

the  fact  that  when  one  returns  to  its  owner  a  box  of  jewels  in¬ 
trusted  to  him,  he  does  not  speak  of  it  as  an  act  of  prudence  but 
of  duty.  He  then  says  :  “  Now  in  what  does  the  difference  con¬ 
sist?  inasmuch  as,  according  to  our  account  of  the  matter,  both 
in  the  one  case  and  the  other,  in  acts  of  duty  as  well  as  acts  of 
prudence,  we  consider  solely  what  we  ourselves  shall  gain  or  lose 
by  the  act.  The  difference  and  the  only  difference  is  this ;  that 
in  the  one  case  we  consider  what  we  shall  gain  or  lose  in  the 
present  world,  in  the  other  we  consider  also  what  we  shall  gain  or 
lose  in  the  world  to  come.”1  Young,  another  English  clergyman, 
in  the  Seventh  Night  of  his  “Night  Thoughts,”  says  :  — 

“  Has  virtue  charms  ?  I  grant  her  heavenly  fair ; 

But  if  unportioned,  all  will  interest  wed; 

Though  that  our  admiration,  this  our  choice. 

The  virtues  grow  on  immortality  ; 

That  root  destroyed,  they  wither  and  expire. 

A  deity  believed  will  nought  avail ; 

Rewards  and  punishments  make  God  adored; 

And  hopes  and  fears  give  conscience  all  her  power. 

As  in  the  dying  parent  dies  the  child, 

Virtue  with  immortality  expires. 

Who  tells  me  he  denies  his  soul  immortal, 

Whate’er  his  boast,  has  told  me  he’s  a  knave. 

His  duty ’t  is  to  love  himself  alone ; 

Nor  care  though  mankind  perish,  if  he  smiles.  .  .  . 

If  this  is  all,  if  earth  a  final  scene, 

Take  heed;  stand  fast ;  be  sure  to  be  a  knave, 

A  knave  ingrain ;  ne’er  deviate  to  the  right. 

Shouldst  thou  be  good,  how  infinite  thy  loss  !  ” 

It  is  represented  in  the  book  of  Job  that  when  Satan  appeared 
among  the  sons  of  God,  his  attention  was  called  to  Job  as  a  pat¬ 
tern  of  uprightness,  fearing  God  and  shunning  sin.  And  Satan 
answered  with  a  sneer,  “  Doth  Job  fear  God  for  nought?  ”  This 
is  the  moral  philosophy  of  Satan ;  and  it  has  a  marvellous  resem¬ 
blance  to  egoistic  hedonism.  It  implies  that  there  is  no  real 
goodness  among  men ;  all  which  passes  for  goodness  is  only 
selfishness  at  heart  disguised  in  the  forms  of  goodness ;  every 
man  has  his  price  ;  he  appears  to  be  upright  and  serving  God, 
but  it  is  only  for  some  selfish  end ;  and  therefore  God’s  law  itself 
is  a  failure  and  his  so-called  kingdom  of  righteousness  a  decep¬ 
tion  and  a  sham.  The  whole  book  is  the  disproof  of  this  sneer¬ 
ing  falsehood,  and  the  setting  forth  of  the  reality  of  disinterested, 

1  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy,  Bk.  i.  chap.  7  and  6;  Bk.  ii.  chap.  3. 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


165 


incorruptible  integrity,  righteousness,  and  fidelity  to  God ;  and  it 
shows  that  the  evils  men  suffer  are  not  any  impeachment  of 
the  righteousness  of  God  and  the  perfection  of  his  law,  but  are  for 
their  improvement,  correction,  and  instruction  in  righteousness. 
In  those  ancient  times  the  hedonistic  conception  was  thought  to 
present  a  type  of  ethics  fit  only  for  the  mouth  of  Satan.  It  is  to 
be  lamented  that  a  theory  so  easily  identified  with  this  has  been 
held  in  modern  times  by  ministers  of  the  church  of  Christ. 

4.  The  next  theory  to  be  considered  is  Utilitarianism ;  the 
theory  that  the  right  supreme  choice  is  universal  happiness,  or 
the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number.  As  Bentham  represents 
it,  the  practice  of  virtue  is  the  art  of  maximizing  happiness.  John 
Stuart  Mill  claims  to  be  the  first  who  brought  this  name  into  use.1 
But  the  name  is  in  conflict  with  his  theory ;  for  what  is  for  use  is 
always  subordinate  to  that  for  which  and  for  whom  it  is  used,  and 
cannot  be  the  ultimate  and  supreme  end.  This  is  another  exam¬ 
ple  of  the  difficulty,  not  to  say  the  impossibility,  of  using  language 
to  express  a  hedonistic  theory  without  transcending  and  contra¬ 
dicting  the  theory. 

All  the  objections  presented  under  numbers  one  and  two  of  this 
section  are  valid  against  this  theory.  In  addition,  the,  following 
errors  are  peculiar  to  and  distinctive  of  it. 

Utilitarianism  cannot,  like  egoistic  hedonism,  be  identified 
with  selfishness.  It  may  be  held,  and  sometimes  has  been  held,  in 
connection  with  a  doctrine  of  disinterested  benevolence.  But  it 
cannot  be  divested  of  the  errors  and  consequent  evil  practical 
tendencies  already  indicated  as  common  to  it  with  egoistic  he¬ 
donism  nor  of  those  common  to  it  with  the  theory  of  rectitude. 
It  is  sufficient  to  recall  a  single  point.  It  recognizes  no  truth 
and  law  eternal  in  the  absolute  Reason  determining  the  archetype 
of  the  universe  before  the  universe  existed  and  regulating  God’s 
action  in  constituting  it.  What  is  good  can  be  ascertained,  there¬ 
fore,  only  by  trying  to  estimate  in  an  empirical  way  the  quantity 
of  enjoyment  obtainable  from  different  proposed  acts  or  lines  of 
action.  The  ideas  of  law  and  right,  therefore,  are  not  primitive 
and  fundamental,  but  derived,  and  that  not  from  a  principle  of 
reason  but  from  an  empirical  idea  of  the  quantity  of  enjoyment. 
They  thus  lose  their  essential  significance  as  obligatory  and  author¬ 
itative.  Being  lugged  in  by  a  roundabout  and  surreptitious  way 

1  Utilitarianism,  p.  9,  note. 


1 66  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


and,  as  it  were,  by  the  back  door,  they  can  never  rise  to  supreme 
authority  in  the  house.  There  remains,  therefore,  no  fixed 
standard  of  principle  for  distinguishing  a  superior  good  from  an 
inferior,  the  noble  from  the  base,  the  worthy  from  the  worthless ; 
and  no  law  determining  the  methods  in  which  the  good  may  be 
rightly  sought.  Hence  the  appeal  must  always  be  to  the  expe¬ 
dient,  not  to  the  right,  —  to  interest,  not  to  law  and  duty. 

The  practical  issue  necessarily  is  a  type  of  low,  calculating,  and 
prudential  morality,  even  in  seeking  the  public  good.  Thus 
Sophocles  represents  Ulysses  pleading  with  Neoptolemus  : 

“  I  know  thy  noble  nature 
Abhors  the  thought  of  treachery  or  fraud  ; 

But  what  a  glorious  prize  is  victory  ! 

Therefore  be  bold;  we  will  be  just  hereafter. 

Give  to  deceit  and  me  a  little  portion 
Of  one  short  day,  and  for  thy  future  life 
Be  called  the  holiest,  worthiest,  best  of  men.” 

Neoptolemus  replies  : 

“  What  open  arms  can  do, 

Behold  me  prompt  to  act,  but  ne’er  to  fraud 

Will  I  descend . 

I  came  to  be  a  helpmate  to  thee,  not 
A  base  betrayer  ;  and,  O  king,  believe  me, 

Rather,  much  rather,  would  I  fall  by  virtue, 

Than  rise  by  guilt  to  certain  victory.”  1 

Having  thus  lost  the  essential  significance  of  right  and  law,  of 
obligation  and  duty,  utilitarianism  naturally  resolves  all  virtue  into 
benevolence  or  good-will.  Righteousness  and  justice  are  excluded 
from  love ;  they  are  even  put  into  antagonism  to  it  and  identified 
with  vengeance.  For  the  same  reason  the  benevolence  degener¬ 
ates  into  mere  amiableness  or  a  desire  to  please,  a  desire  to  make 
people  happy  in  whatever  objects  or  pursuits  they  seek  enjoyment. 
Hence  the  practical  tendency  is  to  make  men  incapable  of  taking 
a  firm  stand  against  wrong-doing  and  wrong-doers.  They  would 
rather  fawn  on  the  Nimrods,  the  hunters  of  men,  and  try  to  please 
them,  than  to  confront  and  oppose  their  wickedness,  fraud,  and 
oppression.  In  like  manner  God  would  be  bereft  of  righteous¬ 
ness  and  justice,  and  his  character  would  become  a  mere  amiable¬ 
ness,  desiring  to  make  every  one  happy  without  regard  to  any 
eternal  principle  of  right  and  law. 

1  Philoctetes,  Act  i.  lines  79-85,  90-95. 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


1 67 


It  follows  that  man's  love  to  God  would  be  limited  to  benevo¬ 
lence,  a  disposition  to  make  God  happy.  This  type  of  religion  was 
unconsciously  exemplified  in  a  man  who,  being  offended  with  a 
brother  in  the  church,  exclaimed  :  “  I  have  done  all  that  I  shall 
ever  do  for  Jesus.”  When  the  Maid  of  Orleans  came  to  the 
army,  the  story  is  that  La  Hire,  the  general,  did  not  relish  the 
praying  and  purifying  which  she  required  in  the  army.  But  she 
persisted ;  and  insisted  also  that  he  should  pray  himself.  Where¬ 
upon  he  offered  this  prayer:  “O  Jehovah,  thou  hast  all  power. 
I  pray  thee  do  as  much  for  La  Hire  in  this  time  of  his  distress, 
as  he  would  do  for  thee,  if  he  were  Jehovah  and  thou  wert  La 
Hire.”  In  the  chronicles  of  the  crusaders  a  similar  story  is  told 
of  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion.  In  his  great  adversity  his  prayer 
changed  into  reproach  :  “  O  fie  !  how  unwilling  should  I  be  to  for¬ 
sake  thee  in  so  forlorn  and  dreadful  a  condition,  were  I  thy  Lord  and 
Advocate,  as  thou  art  mine.  In  sooth,  my  standards  will  in  future 
be  despised,  not  through  my  fault  but  through  thine.  In  sooth, 
not  through  any  cowardice  of  my  warfare,  art  thou  thyself,  my 
king  and  my  God,  conquered  this  day.  and  not  Richard,  thy 
vassal.”  And  in  “Medieval  and  Modern  Saints  and  Miracles” 
we  read  :  “  Louis  XIV.,  whose  reign  has  lately  been  extolled  by 
M.  Nardi  as  a  model  of  truly  Christian,  prosperous,  and  beneficent 
government,  was  a  most  devout  and  constant  worshiper  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  discipline  of  the  church  of  Rome.  His  numerous 
works  of  supererogation,  including  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes,  the  dragonnades  against  the  Protestants  of  his  kingdom, 
the  judicial  murders  of  persons  professing  the  reformed  religion, 

and  other  pious  acts, . had  inspired  him  with  a  conscious 

feeling  of  a  right  to  the  divine  favor  in  all  his  enterprises.  Hence 
it  was  not  strange  that  in  the  reverses  of  his  old  age  he  should, 
referring  to  those  meritorious  acts,  pathetically  exclaim  :  4  How 
can  God  treat  me  thus  after  all  I  have  done  for  him?’  ”  These 
prayers  might  be  a  contribution  to  a  liturgy  for  the  Benthamites. 

The  theory  requires  a  peculiar  modification  of  the  conception 
of  God’s  government  of  the  universe.  It  teaches  that  both  God’s 
love  to  man  and  man’s  love  to  God  are  alike  a  mere  disposition 
to  impart  happiness  to  the  persons  loved ;  and  that  from  this  is 
excluded  all  reference  to  eternal  truth  and  law  antecedent  to  the 
universe  and  ordaining  its  constitution,  the  true  good  possible  in 
it,  and  the  right  methods  of  seeking  that  good.  This  leaves  no 


1 68  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

basis  for  a  government  by  independent  and  eternal  authority  and 
law ;  and  the  only  remaining  standard  of  discrimination  is  the 
quantity  of  enjoyment  empirically  ascertained.  Therefore  God, 
being  infinite,  is  susceptible  of  infinitely  more  happiness  than  all 
finite  beings  together.  His  happiness,  therefore,  ought  to  be  in 
the  same  proportion,  the  greater  object  of  all  action  both  of  God 
and  man.  Then  the  only  government  possible  must  be  some¬ 
thing  similar  to  that  of  an  incorporated  company  in  which  every 
share  has  one  vote,  and  in  which  one  owns  fifty  thousand  shares, 
and  a  thousand  others  own  one  or  two  shares  apiece. 

The  theory  also  fails  to  give  any  real  basis  for  civil  government 
founded  in  justice,  administered  under  just  law  and  asserting  and 
maintaining  the  rights  of  man.  Mr.  Bentham  says :  “  Every 
species  of  satisfaction”  (for  a  wrong  or  injury)  “ naturally  brings 
in  its  train  a  punishment  to  the  defendant,  a  pleasure  of  ven¬ 
geance  for  the  party  injured.  This  pleasure  is  a  gain  :  it  recalls 
the  riddle  of  Samson ;  it  is  the  sweet  which  comes  out  of  the 
strong ;  it  is  the  honey  gathered  from  the  carcass  of  the  lion. 
Produced  without  expense,  net  result  of  an  operation  necessary 
on  other  accounts,  it  is  an  enjoyment  to  be  cultivated  as  well  as 
any  other ;  for  the  pleasure  of  vengeance,  considered  abstractly, 
is  like  every  other  pleasure,  only  good  in  itself.  It  is  innocent  so 
long  as  it  is  confined  within  the  limits  of  the  laws ;  it  becomes 
criminal  at  the  moment  it  breaks  them . Useful  to  the  indi¬ 

vidual,  this  motive  is  also  useful  to  the  public,  or,  to  speak  more 
correctly,  necessary.” 1  But  according  to  Mr.  Bentham’s  own 
theory,  if  the  action  of  the  government  is  determined  by  the 
majority,  the  only  regulative  principle  is  that  the  government 
must  seek  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number.  And  in 
every  case  the  majority  is  the  greatest  number.  The  theory 
justifies  the  majority  in  requiring  by  law  whatever  they  think  is 
for  their  own  greatest  happiness  :  that  is,  whatever  they  desire, 
unregulated  by  any  superior  law.  Thus  the  statute  laws  which, 
Mr.  Bentham  says,  must  not  be  violated  for  the  pleasure  of  ven¬ 
geance  to  an  individual,  are  themselves  only  the  declaration  of 
the  unregulated  desires  of  the  majority,  in  which  their  desire  for 
vengeance  on  the  minority  for  any  disregard  of  their  wishes  counts 
as  one  factor.  This,  certainly,  is  a  precarious  and  dangerous  basis 
for  the  administration  of  justice  and  the  protection  and  main- 
1  Bentham,  “  Principles  of  Penal  Law,”  Part  I.  chap.  xvi. 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  TPIE  LAW 


169 


tenance  of  human  rights.  Thus  on  this  theory  the  will  of  the 
majority  becomes  a  despotism.  It  rolls  over  the  minority  like  a 
great  garden-roller,  pressing  everything  beneath  it  to  a  dead  level, 
and  crushing  out  the  life  of  every  plant  or  animal  that  is  in  its 
path.  Professor  Tyndall  represents  himself  as  saying  to  the 
robber :  “  We  entertain  no  malice  or  hatred  against  you,  but 
simply  with  a  view  to  our  safety  and  purification,  we  are  deter¬ 
mined  that  you  and  such  as  you  shall  not  enjoy  liberty  of  evil 
action  in  our  midst.”  But  who  are  “  we,”  who  are  addressing  this 
robber?  Who  but  the  majority?  And  if  the  “such  as  you,” 
who  are  addressed,  should  happen  to  be  in  the  majority,  is  there 
anything  in  the  utilitarian  ethics  making  it  wrong  for  them  to 
address  the  minority,  consisting  of  Professor  Tyndall  and  other 
cultivated  and  honorable  men,  in  the  same  terms  and  imprison¬ 
ing  them,  in  order  that  they  (the  majority)  may  not  be  hindered 
in  seeking  what  they  regard  as  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number?  For  on  this  theory  there  are  no  more  crimes,  but  only 
nuisances.  And  the  majority  must  determine,  from  their  own  point 
of  view,  what  is  a  nuisance,  and  see  that  it  is  put  away.  Suppose 
the  majority  think  it  for  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number, 
that  is  of  themselves,  that  all  physically  inferior  infants,  and  that 
all  the  shiftless,  the  diseased,  the  maimed,  the  aged,  the  helpless, 
who  can  produce  nothing  and  are  a  burden  on  society  for  support, 
should  be  put  to  death,  and  should  enact  laws  to  that  effect, 
—  is  there  anything  in  the  utilitarian  ethics  making  it  wrong  for 
them  to  do  so?  Or  suppose  the  anarchists  and  communists 
become  a  majority,  and  confiscate  the  property  of  the  minority 
in  order  to  promote  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number, 
that  is,  of  themselves,  is  there  any  principle  of  utilitarianism 
that  is  violated  ?  Thus  this  theory,  as  applied  to  popular  govern¬ 
ment,  seems  to  rest  at  last  only  on  the  maxim  that  might  makes 
right. 

Some  of  the  advocates  of  utilitarianism  have  seen  its  defi¬ 
ciencies  and  falsities  and  have  modified  it  in  various  ways. 
John  Stuart  Mill  recognizes  conscience:  “The  ultimate  sanc¬ 
tion,  therefore,  of  all  morality  (external  motives  apart)  being  a 
subjective  feeling  in  our  own  minds,  I  see  nothing  embarrassing 
to  those  whose  standard  is  utility,  in  the  question,  What  is  the 
sanction  of  that  particular  standard?  We  may  answer,  The 
same  as  of  all  other  moral  standards,  the  conscientious  feeling 


170  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


of  mankind.”1  If  the  common  conscience  of  mankind  is  recog¬ 
nized  as  a  standard  or  criterion  for  determining  what  is  right  or 
wrong,  it  is  an  important  advance  toward  a  higher  type  of  ethics 
than  mere  utilitarianism. 

The  utilitarian  type  of  ethics  has  been  held  in  various  forms 
by  Christian  theologians ;  but  always  with  essential  modifications. 
It  has  been  modified  by  the  recognition  of  the  law  of  God  as 
revealed  by  Christ  as  the  eternal  and  immutable  standard  of  right 
and  wrong  ;  by  substituting  the  good  defined  as  well-being  deter¬ 
mined  by  the  truths,  laws,  and  ideals  of  reason,  for  happiness  or 
enjoyment  measured  only  by  quantity  of  duration  and  intensity ; 
and  by  dissociating  this  theory  from  the  self-love  theory.  But 
the  Christian  utilitarianism,  though  lifted  above  the  original  theory 
by  Christian  elements  of  thought  transcending  it,  still  carries  in 
it  serious  errors  and  evil  practical  influences.  True  Christian 
ethics  teaches  that,  in  the  sphere  of  getting  and  possessing,  the 
highest  object  of  pursuit  is  universal  well-being.  Christian  utili¬ 
tarianism  presents  this  as  the  object  of  the  right  supreme  choice. 
Thus  it  mistakes  a  subordinate  choice  for  the  supreme.  For  the 
object  of  the  right  supreme  choice  is  not  at  all  in  the  sphere  of 
what  is  to  be  got  and  possessed,  but  is  God  and  our  neighbor  as 
ourselves,  chosen  as  objects  of  trust  and  service.  The  pursuit  of 
the  good  is  always  a  service  to  a  person  and  thus  subordinate  to 
the  supreme  choice  of  a  person  or  persons  as  the  object  of  trust 
and  service. 

And  besides  this  substituting  of  a  subordinate  for  the  supreme 
end  there  remain  in  the  Christian  utilitarianism  other  errors.  It 
identifies  love  with  benevolence.  It  is  difficult  for  it  to  find  a 
place  for  righteousness  and  justice ;  its  tendency  is  either  to  re¬ 
gard  justice  as  something  outside  of  love  and  even  antagonistic 
to  it ;  or  else  to  resolve  it  into  general  justice,  essentially  the 
same  with  general  benevolence,  which  seeks  the  general  well¬ 
being.  It  seems  to  resolve  all  virtue  into  universal  good-will. 
But  because  it  limits  love  to  benevolence,  there  is  hidden  in  it 
a  subtle  tendency  to  exclude  all  love  to  evil-doers,  who  are  de¬ 
tracting  from  the  general  sum  of  happiness  ;  and  to  resolve  jus¬ 
tice,  excluded  from  love,  into  vengeance,  the  pleasure  of  which, 
Bentham  says,  is  a  good  in  itself  and  is  included  in  estimating 
the  sum  total  of  enjoyment.  And  God’s  just  punishment  of 

1  Utilitarianism,  p.  42. 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


171 


the  wicked,  excluded  from  his  love,  is  brought  under  suspicion 
and  objection  as  taking  on  an  aspect  of  malignity.  The  younger 
Edwards  says  :  “  If  love  and  attachment  to  any  individual,  as  to 
a  murderer,  whose  life  and  prosperity  are  inconsistent  with  gen¬ 
eral  happiness,  tend  to  impair  the  general  happiness,  I  am  not 
obligated  in  that  case  to  love  him.”  And,  finally,  there  is  in  it 
no  clear  recognition  of  the  fundamental  facts  that  the  realm  of 
ends  is  the  sphere  of  personality,  and  that  the  whole  action  of 
man,  receptive  and  productive,  is  in  the  trust  and  service  of  a 
person  or  persons. 

5.  We  are  to  consider  next  some  of  the  errors  and  evil  practical 
tendencies  peculiar  to  the  theory  of  rectitude,  additional  to  those 
mentioned  under  number  one  of  this  section.  This  is  the  theory 
that  rectitude  itself,  right  character  or  holiness,  is  the  supreme 
object  of  the  love  required  by  the  law.  Its  principle  is  that  holi¬ 
ness  must  be  loved  for  its  own  sake,  not  for  the  sake  of  happiness 
and  without  regard  to  reward  or  punishment.  For  an  act  to  be 
done  virtuously  it  must  be  done  because  it  is  virtuous ;  its  vir¬ 
tuousness  must  be  the  ruling  consideration  which  leads  to  the 
doing  of  it.  Bishop  Butler  says  :  “  Human  nature  is  so  consti¬ 
tuted  that  every  good  affection  implies  the  love  of  itself ;  that 
is,  becomes  the  object  of  a  new  affection  in  the  same  person. 
Thus,  to  be  righteous  implies  in  it  the  love  of  righteousness ;  to 
be  benevolent,  the  love  of  benevolence  ;  to  be  good,  the  love  of 
goodness ;  whether  this  righteousness,  benevolence,  or  goodness 
be  viewed  as  in  our  own  mind  or  in  another’s.  .  .  .  Absolute  rec¬ 
titude,  the  perfection  of  being,  must  be  in  all  senses  and  in  every 
respect,  the  highest  object  to  the  mind.”  He  adduces  at  the 
close  of  the  sermon  a  series  of  texts  from  the  Bible  in  confirma¬ 
tion  of  his  doctrine.  But  it  is  remarkable  that  in  every  one  of 
them  it  is  God  who  is  presented  as  the  object  of  love  and  delight, 
not  rectitude  or  righteousness  or  benevolence.  The  character 
required  by  the  theory  of  rectitude  and  here  described  by  Bishop 
Butler  has  been  called  in  theology  amor  amoris ,  the  love  of  love. 

This  theory  was  represented  in  the  Greek  philosophy  by  Stoi¬ 
cism.  It  is  the  noblest  of  the  erroneous  ethical  theories  now 
under  consideration  and  has  been  associated  with  some  of  the 
greatest  Christian  characters  and  some  of  the  greatest  Christian 

1  The  Foundation  of  Moral  Obligation;  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  541. 

2  Sermons  on  Human  Nature,  xii.,  xiv.  pp.  153,  170,  173. 


172  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


achievements.  But  besides  the  errors  already  mentioned  as 
common  to  it  with  the  hedonistic  theories,  it  is  open  distinc¬ 
tively  to  the  following  objections. 

First,  it  is  an  attempt  to  construct  an  ethical  theory  from  the 
formal  principle  of  the  law  alone.  It  tells  us  the  supreme  object 
of  choice  must  be  conformity  with  the  law,  buc  does  not  tell  us 
what  the  law  requires,  nor  in  what  action  and  character  conform¬ 
ity  with  the  law  consists.  It  does  not  declare  the  real  principle 
of  the  law.  It  says  :  Choose  holiness  for  its  own  sake ;  choose 
that  which  is  right  for  its  own  sake ;  choose  that  which  reason 
judges  worthy  for  its  own  sake ;  choose  ideal  perfection  for  its 
own  sake.  But  it  does  not  tell  us  in  what  the  holy,  the  right,  the 
worthy,  the  perfect,  consist. 

But  the  will  can  consent  to  the  formal  principle  of  the  law  only 
in  actually  exercising  the  love  to  God  and  man  which  the  real 
principle  of  the  law  requires.  We  cannot  give  the  consent  of 
the  will  to  the  law  in  itself  abstractly  as  law,  nor  to  its  real  prin¬ 
ciple  abstractly  as  a  principle,  so  long  as  we  disobey  its  command 
of  universal  love.  The  sense  of  duty  and  obligation,  the  rational 
approval  of  the  law,  the  sentiment  of  respect  and  reverence  for 
it  are  inherent  in  the  moral  constitution  of  man.  But  the  con¬ 
sent  of  the  will  to  the  law  is  much  more  than  these.  It  can  be 
nothing  less  than  our  free  and  abiding  choice  of  God  as  supreme 
and  of  our  neighbor  as  ourselves  as  objects  of  trust  and  service ; 
nothing  less  than  the  actual  exercise  of  the  love  to  God  and  man 
which  the  law  in  its  real  principle  requires. 

The  abstractness  and  emptiness  of  this  theory,  as  constructing  a 
definition  of  virtue  from  the  formal  principle  of  the  law  alone,  is 
evident  as  soon  as  we  try  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  the  definition. 
Holiness  is  defined  as  the  love  of  holiness  for  its  own  sake. 
Then  holiness  is  something  different  from  itself.  Substitute  for 
holiness  its  definition,  and  we  have  Holiness  is  the  love  of  the 
love  of  holiness.  Make  the  substitution  again,  and  we  have  Holi¬ 
ness  is  the  love  of  the  love  of  the  love  of  holiness,  and  so  on  with¬ 
out  end.  The  definition  contains  the  word  to  be  defined  and  so 
vanishes  in  an  endless  series  signifying  nothing.  The  same  is 
true  of  the  amor  amoris ,  or  love  of  love  ;  and  of  every  definition 
of  right  character  which  this  theory  of  rectitude  permits  without 
transcending  itself. 

Secondly,  its  practical  tendency  is  to  a  narrow  and  one-sided 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


173 


type  of  character.  This  tendency  has  shown  itself  in  two 
directions. 

In  one  direction  it  issues  in  a  type  of  character  in  which  the 
idea  of  law  and  obligation  predominates ;  then  a  stern  sense  of 
duty  displaces,  or  at  least  overlays,  the  concrete,  spontaneous, 
energizing  love  to  God  and  man.  It  is  a  common  defect  of  sys¬ 
tems  of  ethics  that  they  define  virtue  as  merely  the  doing  of 
duty ;  as  Reid  defines  it :  virtue  consists  “  in  a  fixed  purpose  or 
resolution  to  act  according  to  our  sense  of  duty.”  Thus  love, 
which  is  the  essence  of  light  character  and  gives  it  unity,  con¬ 
tinuity,  and  spontaneity,  is  overlooked  ;  virtue  is  brought  up  to 
the  surface  of  the  being  as  outward  action ;  it  is  broken  up  into 
isolated  actions ;  and  character  is,  as  with  Aristotle,  resolved  into 
mere  habits  formed  by  successive  actions.  So  Dugald  Stewart 
says  :  “It  is  the  fixed  purpose  to  do  what  is  right  which  evidently 
constitutes  what  we  call  a  virtuous  disposition.  But  it  appears  to 
me  that  virtue,  considered  as  an  attribute  of  character,  is  more 
properly  defined  by  the  habit  which  the  fixed  purpose  gradually 
forms,  than  by  the  fixed  purpose  itself.”  1  This  stern  regard  to 
duty  was  the  characteristic  of  the  Stoics ;  and  it  is  the  only 
motive  which  Kant  recognizes  as  distinctively  moral.  The  same 
was  the  characteristic  of  the  Puritans.  In  this  type  of  character 
duty  resounds  through  the  life  and  fills  the  whole  firmament  of  the 
being,  as  thunder  fills  the  sky.  The  fear  of  God  drives  out 
every  other  fear  and  makes  men  strong  and  bold  against  wrong¬ 
doing  by  powers  however  great.  But  because  love  is  not  made 
prominent,  the  character  becomes  marked  by  a  lack  of  spon¬ 
taneity  and  enthusiasm,  of  the  tenderness  of  Ghristian  compassion, 
of  the  sweetness  of  Christian  charity,  the  earnestness  of  Christian 
beneficence  in  relieving  human  misery,  and  of  Christian  geniality 
in  diffusing  happiness  everywhere 

In  another  direction  this  theory  of  rectitude  practically  tends  to 
develop  a  one-sided  piety  of  another  type.  It  is  when  the  love  of 
holiness  for  its  own  sake  fixes  chiefly  on  the  ideal  of  personal  per¬ 
fection,  and  this  displaces  or  overlays  active  love  to  God  and  man. 
Then  we  have  a  religion  of  emotion,  aspiration,  meditation,  wor¬ 
ship  ;  of  retirement  from  the  world  instead  of  working  in  it  to 
save  the  world ;  of  longing  to  commune  with  God  and  to  be 
like  him ;  a  religion  which  expends  itself  in  subjective  spiritual 

1  Philosophy  of  the  Active  and  Moral  Powers,  Bk.  iv.  chap.  v.  sect.  2. 


174  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


exercises,  seeking  rapturous  experiences.  It  issues  in  quietism 
or  some  form  of  mysticism.  But  love  to  man  and  self-sacrificing 
and  painstaking  service  to  men  to  make  them  wiser,  better,  and 
happier,  is  not  made  prominent.  And  because  this  does  not 
call  attention  prominently  to  God’s  law,  it  does  not  develop  a 
vigorous  and  ruling  sense  of  duty,  nor  a  nice  discrimination  be¬ 
tween  right  and  wrong.  Hence  such  a  person,  notwithstanding 
the  emotional  fervor,  may  not  be  scrupulously  honest  in  business, 
or  kind  as  a  neighbor,  or  pleasant  in  the  family.  This  type  of 
piety  does  not  readily  accord  with  our  Saviour’s  teaching  that  the 
requirement  of  love  to  our  neighbor  is  the  second  great  com¬ 
mandment,  like  unto  the  first ;  and  hi*s  explanation  of  it  by  the 
parable  of  the  good  Samaritan ;  nor  with  the  teaching  of  James, 
“  Pure  religion  and  undefiled  before  our  God  and  Father  is  this, 
to  visit  the  fatherless  and  widows  in  their  affliction  ”  (Luke  x. 
2 5—3 7  ;  James  i.  26,  27). 

Thirdly,  this  theory  logically  leaves  no  place  for  love  to  the 
wicked.  If  holiness  is  the  love  of  holiness  for  its  own  sake,  there 
is  nothing  in  the  wicked  person,  destitute  of  holiness,  which  can 
be  the  object  of  Christian  love.  The  wicked  then  can  be  the 
object  only  of  condemnation,  abhorrence,  and  antagonism.  Jus¬ 
tice  to  the  wicked  is  no  longer  done  in  an  atmosphere  of  good¬ 
will  ;  and  an  element  of  malignity  and  hate  naturally  creeps  in. 
And  there  is  logically  no  place  for  God’s  love  to  sinners ;  and  he 
has  been  represented  in  sermons  as  having  no  compassion  or  good¬ 
will  to  sinners,  but  only  hatred  and  contempt. 

Fourthly,  this  type  of  ethics  does  not  preclude  unconscious 
selfishness.  When  right  character  is  regarded  mainly  as  a  doing 
of  duties  and  obeying  the  law,  it  easily  admits  pride,  self-suffi¬ 
ciency,  self-righteousness,  bigotry,  and  intolerance.  The  earlier 
Stoics  reckoned  self-sufficiency  in  the  formation  of  right  character 
as  essential  to  virtue.  So  Horace  says  :  “  It  is  enough  to  pray  to 
Jupiter,  who  gives  and  takes  away,  for  life  and  wealth ;  but  a  just 
and  equal  mind  I  myself  prepare  for  myself.”  The  Pharisees  did 
the  duties  of  religion,  as  they  understood  them,  with  a  punctilious¬ 
ness  and  earnestness  never  surpassed.  Yet  thereby  Pharisaism  has 
become  to  all  ages  the  name  for  religious  self-sufficiency,  self- 
righteousness,  and  intolerance. 

In  that  type  of  character  in  which  the  person  concentrates  his 
thought  and  energy  on  attaining  his  own  personal  holiness,  there 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


175 


is  easy  entrance  for  selfishness  in  the  fact  that  his  attention  is 
concentrated  on  himself.  He  is  seeking  his  own  perfection  and 
peace  with  God.  Hence  comes  a  piety  which  is  subjective,  con¬ 
cerned  with  the  person’s  own  spiritual  state  and  growth ;  intro¬ 
spective,  watching  his  own  feelings,  congratulating  himself  when 
he  has  conscious  peace  with  God  and  joy  in  him,  and  mourn¬ 
ing  when  he  has  not ;  concentrated  on  himself  and  on  nourishing 
his  own  spiritual  growth,  rather  than  on  plans  and  labor  in  self- 
sacrificing  love  to  help  and  save  others.  It  is  a  piety  of  self¬ 
development  rather  than  of  self-devotement.  It  is  the  nourishing 
of  self  on  the  bread  and  the  water  of  life ;  a  spiritual  living  in 
order  to  eat  instead  of  eating  in  order  to  live  and  do  the  work  of 
life. 

IV.  The  Real  Principle  of  the  Law  in  Christian  Ethics.  — 
In  distinction  from  the  foregoing  three  false  theories,  we  are  now 
to  consider  what  the  real  principle  of  the  law  and  the  moral  char¬ 
acter  which  it  requires  are  as  presented  in  the  life  and  teachings 
of  Christ  and  defined  in  Christian  ethics. 

1.  A  Pharisee,  who  was  a  student  and  teacher  of  the  law, 
asked  Jesus,  “  Which  is  the  great  commandment  of  the  law?” 
Jesus  replied,  “  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all 
thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  with 
all  thy  strength.  This  is  the  first  and  great  commandment. 
And  a  second  like  unto  it  is  this,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor 
as  thyself.  On  these  two  commandments  hangeth  the  whole 
law,  and  the  prophets.”  1  This  conception  of  the  unity  of  the 
law  as  comprehended  in  these  two  commandments  is  set  forth 
and  developed  by  Christ  and  his  apostles.  In  fact  it  is  the 
ethical  doctrine  taught  in  the  law  and  the  prophets  in  the 
Old  Testament,  though  less  clearly  and  fully  than  in  the  New. 
It  is  the  real  and  essential  principle  of  the  law  in  Christian 
ethics. 

As  such  it  is  the  comprehensive  principle  in  which  all  particu¬ 
lar  precepts  are  implied  and  from  which  they  are  to  be  deduced. 
This  is  the  explicit  teaching  of  Christ :  “  on  these  two  command¬ 
ments  hangeth  the  whole  law,  and  the  prophets.”  Equally 
decisive  is  the  teaching  of  the  apostles :  “  The  end  of  the 
commandment  is  love  out  of  a  pure  heart  and  a  good  conscience 

1  Matth.  xxii.  34-40;  Mark  xii.  29-31. 


176  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

and  faith  unfeigned.”  “  Love  is  of  God ;  and  every  one  that 
loveth  is  begotten  of  God  and  knoweth  God.  He  that  loveth 
not  knoweth  not  God  ;  for  God  is  love.  .  .  Beloved,  if  God  so 
loved  us,  we  ought  also  to  love  one  another.  .  .  If  we  love  one 
another,  God  abideth  in  us  and  his  love  is  perfected  in  us.” 

This  universal  love  is,  therefore,  the  vitalizing  essence  of  all 
right  character.  We  have  seen  that  the  love  required  in  the  law, 
psychologically  defined,  is  not  a  natural  instinct  or  affection,  nor 
any  merely  constitutional  feeling  or  motive.  It  is  the  person’s 
free  and  abiding  choice  of  a  person  or  persons  as  the  object 
of  his  trust  and  service.  This  definition  being  accepted,  then 
in  Christian  ethics  all  right  character  consists  vitally  and  essen¬ 
tially  in  the  choice  of  God  with  all  the  heart  as  the  supreme 
object  of  trust  and  service,  and  of  our  neighbor  as,  equally  with 
ourselves  in  the  unity  of  the  moral  system  and  under  our 
common  relations  to  God,  the  object  of  trust  and  service.  This 
choice  is  the  essence  of  right  character  in  its  continuity,  unity, 
and  spontaneity.  It  is  the  love  of  God  with  all  the  heart  and 
of  our  neighbor  as  ourselves,  involving  that  which  is  the  essence 
of  all  love,  the  self-renouncing  devotement  of  ourselves  to  the 
person  loved  in  trust  and  service. 

When  true  love  to  God  and  man  exists,  it  will  be  manifested, 
expressed,  exercised,  as  opportunity  offers,  in  acts  of  trust  and 
service  to  the  person  loved.  “  If  ye  love  me,  ye  will  keep  my 
commandments.”  “This  is  the  love  of  God,  that  we  keep  his 
commandments.”  Conversely,  every  act  that  is  right  is  the 
expression  or  exercise  of  love ;  and  it  is  because  it  is  so  that 
it  is  a  right  or  virtuous  act.  It  is  the  common  characteristic 
of  all  right  acts  that  they  are  the  exercise  and  expression  of  love. 
It  is  the  love  exercised  in  them  which  constitutes  them  right 
or  virtuous.  “  He  that  hath  my  commandments  and  keepeth 
them,  he  it  is  that  loveth  me.”  3  And,  negatively,  no  act  can 
be  right  which  is  not  the  expression  and  exercise  of  Christian 
love.  “  Though  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed  the  poor  and 
though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned,  but  have  not  love,  it 
profiteth  me  nothing.” 4 

The  scriptures  further  teach  that  love  to  God  is  implied 
in  all  true  love  to  man,  and  that  love  to  man  is  implied  in 


1  1  Tim.  i.  5 ;  1  John  iv.  7-21. 

2  John  xiv.  15;  1  John  v.  3. 


3  John  xiv.  21. 

4  1  Cor.  xiii.  1-3. 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


1 17 


all  true  love  to  God.  Jesus  says  this  second  great  command¬ 
ment  is  like  unto  the  first.  Christ  in  the  judgment  says ; 
“  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  one  of  these  my  brethren,  even 
these  least,  ye  did  it  unto  me.”  And  he  said  to  his  disciples : 
“  He  that  receiveth  you,  receiveth  me,  and  he  that  receiveth  me, 
receiveth  him  that  sent  me.”  In  the  Old  Testament  also  this 
fact  is  recognized,  that  all  true  love  to  man  implies  love  to  God ; 
as  for  example  :  “  He  who  hath  pity  on  the  poor  lendeth  unto 
the  Lord,  and  his  good  deed  will  he  pay  him  again.”  And  John 
says :  “If  a  man  say,  I  love  God,  and  hateth  his  brother,  he 
is  a  liar ;  for  he  that  loveth  not  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen, 
cannot  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen  ;”  and  Paul  says  :  “  Owe 
no  man  anything,  save  to  love  one  another ;  for  he  that  loveth 
his  neighbor  hath  fulfilled  the  law.”  “The  whole  law  is  fulfilled 
in  one  word,  even  in  this :  “  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself.”  1 

This  love  is  also  declared  to  be  the  essential  principle  of  the 
Christian  life.  “  Every  one  who  loveth  is  born  of  God  and 
knoweth  God.  He  who  loveth  not  knoweth  not  God.”  It  is 
declared  to  be  the  essence  of  God’s  character :  “  God  is  love.” 
Christ  reveals  that  love  is  the  essential  principle  of  his  own 
obedience  :  “  that  the  world  may  know  that  I  love  the  Father, 
and  as  the  Father  hath  given  me  commandment  even  so  I  do.”  2 
And  the  humiliation  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  the  whole  earthly 
life,  work,  and  death  of  Christ  in  their  atoning  significance,  assert 
and  maintain  the  supremacy,  the  universality,  the  unchangeable 
authority  and  inviolability  of  the  law  of  love  ;  a  proclamation 
of  law  more  grand  and  awful  than  that  on  Sinai.  In  the  very 
redemptive  action  by  which  God  seeks  man  to  reconcile  him  to 
God,  he  reveals  the  inviolability  of  the  law  of  love,  as  the  law 
in  accordance  with  which  the  universe  has  been  constituted, 
so  that  it  is  impossible  for  any  person  to  attain  any  true  good  in 
the  universe  except  by  being  brought  into  complete  harmony 
with  the  law  of  God  and  with  his  righteousness  in  maintaining 
and  enforcing  it.  The  righteousness  and  law  of  God  cannot 
be  changed  in  order  to  be  brought  down  to  the  sinner,  but  the 
sinner  must  be  brought  up  into  harmony  with  the  law  and 

1  Matth.  xxv.  40,  &  x.  40;  Prov.  xix.  17;  1  John  iv.  20,  21  ;  Rom.  xiii. 
8-10;  Gal.  v.  14. 

-  1  John  iv.  7,  8,  16;  John  xiv.  31,  &  xv.  10,  &  iii.  16,  17  ;  Rom.  v.  6-11. 

VOL.  11  —  12 


178  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


righteousness  of  God.  Man  is  not  redeemed  from  the  law  but 
to  it ;  not  from  God  but  to  God. 

The  teachings  of  Christ  and  the  apostles  imply  also  that  love 
in  man,  as  required  by  the  law,  is  the  same  in  kind  with  God’s 
love  ;  and  that  by  continued  action  in  love  to  God  and  man, 
the  Christian  is  realizing  in  himself  the  moral  likeness  of  God, 
who  is  love.  “  Ye  therefore  shall  be  perfect,  as  your  heavenly 
Father  is  perfect.”  “  As  he  who  called  you  is  holy,  be  ye 
yourselves  also  holy  in  all  manner  of  living ;  because  it  is  written, 
Ye  shall  be  holy ;  for  I  am  holy.”  God  is  love.  By  his  own 
free  choice  his  will  is  eternally  in  harmony  with  the  law  of  love 
eternal  in  himself.  All  his  action  in  constituting  and  governing 
the  universe  is  the  expression  of  that  love  and  the  progressive 
realization  of  its  wise  and  beneficent  ends.  His  love,  like  that 
required  of  man,  is  benevolence  or  good-will  exercised  in  right¬ 
eousness  ;  that  is,  in  willing  conformity  with  the  archetypal 
and  eternal  truth,  law,  and  ideal  of  God,  the  absolute  and  perfect 
Reason  energizing  in  perfect  wisdom  and  love. 

This  must  manifest  itself,  in  all  finite  persons,  both  in  receptive 
action  and  in  productive  ;  it  must  be  love  that  trusts  and  love 
that  serves.  This  is  the  common  scriptural  doctrine,  that  all 
right  character  of  men  must  begin  in  faith  in  God.  Faith,  so  far 
as  it  is  a  moral  act,  is  trust  in  a  person.  Alike  because  man  is  a 
creature  and  dependent,  and  a  sinner  needing  redemption,  reno¬ 
vation,  and  forgiveness,  his  right  character  must  begin  as  trust  in 
God  ;  and  trust  in  God  is  possible  only  in  the  sense  of  need  and 
as  self-renouncing,  loving  trust.  Thus  the  real  principle  of  the 
law  requires  love  manifesting  itself  in  the  receptive  action  of  faith 
or  self-renouncing  trust  in  God,  as  well  as  in  the  productive  action 
of  service  in  obedience  to  the  law. 

Such  is  the  real  and  all-comprehending  principle  of  the  law  and 
the  vital  essence  of  the  character  which  it  requires. 

2.  Christian  ethics  teaches  that  the  object  of  the  love  required 
by  the  law  is  a  person  or  persons  chosen  as  objects  of  trust  and 
service,  not  any  objects  to  be  acquired,  possessed,  and  used. 

This,  as  already  shown,  is  the  obvious  meaning  of  the  teaching 
of  Christ  and  his  apostles.  The  object  of  love  is  not  wealth,  or 
fame,  or  knowledge,  —  not  happiness,  truth,  duty,  virtue,  perfec¬ 
tion  ;  it  is  God,  and  our  neighbor  as  ourselves. 

This  is  demanded  also  by  philosophical  thought.  The  physical 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


179 


universe  is  subordinate  to  the  rational  and  spiritual.  All  things 
in  it  are  for  use.  Minerals  and  plants,  the  beasts  and  birds,  the 
powers  and  resources  of  nature,  things  of  every  kind,  knowledge 
and  character,  all  qualities,  powers,  and  conditions  are  for  the 
service  and  use  of  man ;  and  he  may  seek  to  gain,  possess,  and 
use  them  for  himself  or  his  fellow-men.  Man  in  the  beginning 
was  appointed  lord  of  nature,  to  take  possession  of  its  resources 
and  powers  and  use  them  in  the  service  of  God  and  man. 

But  a  person,  by  virtue  of  his  rational  free  personality,  whereby 
he  is  in  the  likeness  of  God  and  a  participant  in  the  rational  and 
moral  system  under  the  moral  government  of  God,  is  an  end  in 
himself.  He  may  never  be  acquired,  owned,  and  used ;  he  may 
never  be  made  a  slave,  a  tool,  a  stepping-stone,  a  toy,  a  victim 
by  and  for  another.  This  principle  is  at  the  foundation  of  the 
modern  doctrine  of  the  worth  of  man  and  of  his  inalienable  right 
inherent  in  his  personality,  on  which  all  political  freedom  and 
social  progress  are  founded.  It  is  this  by  which  men  in  modern 
times  have  established  constitutional  government  and  political 
freedom,  have  wrought  the  emancipation  of  slaves  and  serfs,  and 
are  seeking  in  every  direction  the  personal,  political,  and  social 
progress  of  mankind. 

“  Our  life  is  turned 

Out  of  its  course,  wherever  man  is  made 
An  offering  or  a  sacrifice,  a  tool 
Or  implement,  a  passive  thing  employed 
As  a  brute  mean,  without  acknowledgment 
Of  common  right  or  interest  in  the  end  ; 

Used  or  abused  as  selfishness  may  prompt.” 

In  contrast  with  Christian  ethics  the  philosophy  of  Greece  and 
Rome  proceeded  on  the  supposition  that  the  key  to  the  construc¬ 
tion  of  an  ethical  system  is  found  only  in  the  answer  to  the  ques¬ 
tion,  What  is  the  highest  good?  that  to  find  the  answer  to  this 
question  is  the  one  problem  which  ethics  has  to  solve.  The  Epi¬ 
cureans  taught  that  the  supreme  good  is  happiness  ;  the  Stoics  that 
it  is  virtue  chosen  for  its  own  sake  without  reference  to  happi¬ 
ness  ;  and  the  Peripatetics  that  it  is  the  practice  of  virtue  in  pros¬ 
perity.1  But  in  Christian  ethics  we  break  away  entirely  from  this 
round  of  theories,  in  which  thought  has  circled  so  long  in  vain. 
We  are  now  in  the  sphere  of  personality,  the  realm  of  ends ;  the 

1  Xprj(ris  aperr/s  iv  evTvx'ia. 


l80  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


question  which  is  the  key  to  true  ethics  is  no  longer,  What  shall 
I  choose  to  get,  possess,  and  use  as  the  greatest  good?  but, 
Whom  shall  I  choose  as  the  object  of  trust  and  service?  We 
are  therefore  in  a  wholly  different  sphere  of  thought.  The  object 
chosen  is  no  longer  something  to  be  got,  possessed,  and  used,  but 
a  person  to  be  trusted  and  served.  And  the  action  is  no  longer 
getting,  possessing,  and  using,  but  it  is  trusting  and  serving. 

When  we  consider  how  plainly  Christ  and  his  apostles  declare 
that  the  essence  of  right  character  is  love,  —  that  the  object  of  the 
love  is  not  happiness  nor  holiness,  but  God  and  our  neighbor  as 
ourselves,  —  and  that  the  action  in  which  the  love  manifests  itself  is 
not  getting  and  possessing  a  thing,  but  trusting  and  serving  a  per¬ 
son,  it  is  surprising  that  Christian  moralists  and  theologians  to¬ 
day  have  been  teaching  theories  closely  analogous  to  the  ancient 
ethics  of  heathen  writers,  going  through  the  old  controversies  on 
essentially  the  same  questions,  and  equally  without  agreement ; 
still  bewildered  in  the  labyrinth  in  which  ethical  thought  has  been 
winding  its  dubious  way  for  ages  through  intricate  passages  from 
which  it  has  never  been  able  to  find  its  way  out  into  the  open 
sunlight.  Thus  in  Christian  teachings  on  ethics,  “  Plato,  Tully, 
Epictetus,  preach,”  instead  of  Christ. 

This  has  been  to  a  great  extent  the  fact  from  early  Christian 
times.  “  The  first  Christian  Ethics  is  the  work  of  Ambrose  on 
‘  Duties.’  It  borrows  its  title  and  something  more  from  Cicero’s 
famous  work,  ‘De  Officiis.’  It  might  be  called  a  translation  from 
the  Ciceronian  into  the  Christian.  It  is  in  the  sphere  of  morals  that 
the  influence  of  the  ancient  views  would  make  itself  more  strongly 
felt  than  in  dogmatics.  .  .  .  The  teachers  of  the  church  found  a 
complete  and  well  worked  out  philosophical  system  of  ethics. 
They  had  learned  this  in  the  schools.  The  great  Cappadocians, 
Basil  and  Gregory,  had  been  brought  up  and  taught  like  any  other 
aristocratic  Roman  of  that  day.  Hence  they  accepted  the  entire 
framework  of  ancient  ethics,  its  categories  and  definitions,  and 
used  it  for  the  insertion  of  new  Christian  matter.  .  .  .  The  form 
influenced  the  matter ;  and  the  result  was  not  a  Christian  ethics, 
but  a  mixture.  .  .  .  Ancient  ethics  is  thoroughly  eudaemonistic ; 
the  aim  of  the  philosopher  even  in  his  moral  conduct  is  his  own 
well-being.  Ambrose  of  course  had  to  renounce  this  principle, 
but  he  lays  down  a  more  refined  eudsemonism  in  its  place. 
Philosophers,  he  argues,  ask  what  is  ‘  profitable  and  honorable,’ 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW  1 8 1 

but  have  in  this  inquiry  only  this  life  in  view.  ‘  We,  however,’ 
says  Ambrose,  ‘  estimate  what  is  profitable  and  honorable  rather 
by  the  standard  of  things  to  come  than  of  the  present,  and 
define  as  profitable  not  what  contributes  to  the  enjoyment  of 
this  life,  but  what  helps  to  attain  the  grace  of  eternal  life.’  .  .  . 
The  ancient  framework.  .  .  .  the  four  cardinal  virtues,  prudence, 
justice,  fortitude,  temperance,  .  .  .  Ambrose  introduced  into 
Christian  ethics,  and  it  continued  in  force  to  the  time  of  the 
Reformation.” 1  The  Christian  ethics  of  the  middle  ages,  as 
developed  by  Peter  Lombard,  in  his  “  Sentences  ”  long  used  as  the 
text-book  in  theological  instruction,  and  further  by  Thomas  Aqui¬ 
nas,  recognized  three  theological  virtues,  faith,  hope,  charity  or 
love,  taken  from  the  scriptures ;  four  cardinal  moral  virtues,  jus¬ 
tice,  fortitude,  prudence,  temperance,  taken  from  the  Greek  phi¬ 
losophy  ;  seven  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  wisdom,  understanding,  counsel, 
strength,  knowledge,  piety  or  godliness,  and  fear  or  reverence 
(Isaiah  xi.  2,  3)  ;  twelve  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  love,  joy,  peace, 
patience,  long-suffering,  goodness  or  good-will,  benignity,  mild¬ 
ness  or  equanimity,  faith  (meaning  unsuspiciousness  and  fidelity), 
modesty,  chastity,  continence  ;  seven  corporal  and  seven  spiritual 
works  of  mercy,  all  leading  up  to  the  eight  beatitudes. 

This  is  largely  drawn  from  the  scriptures.  But  obviously  it  is 
not  a  systematic  development  of  practical  ethics  from  the  require¬ 
ment  of  love  to  God  as  supreme  and  to  our  neighbor  as  ourselves, 
which  is  the  real  principle  of  the  law  and  of  all  true  practical 
ethics.  Protestant  moralists  and  theologians  in  recent  times 
have  more  commonly  taken  one  of  the  three  theories  which  I 
have  included  in  the  first  class  as  the  framework  on  which  to 
construct  Christian  ethics.  Their  systems,  therefore,  are  not 
copies,  but  homologues  of  these  theories  taught  in  Greece  and 
Rome.  Certainly  it  is  not  too  much  to  ask  that  Christian  teachers 
should  construct  their  systems  of  Christian  ethics,  not  on  the 
framework  of  heathen  philosophy,  but  on  the  law  of  love  as  the 
real  principle  of  the  law ;  that  they  should  recognize  the  fact  that 
the  object  of  the  love  required  is  not  a  thing,  quality,  or  condition, 
but  persons,  God,  our  neighbor  and  ourselves ;  and  that  the 
activity  devoted  to  the  person  loved  is  not  a  getting,  possessing, 
and  using,  but  is  both  the  receptive  and  productive  action  devoted 

1  Uhlhorn,  “  Christian  Charity  in  the  Ancient  Church, ’’  Trans.,  pp.  303- 
30  5 


1 82  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


to  God  as  supreme  and  to  our  neighbor  as  ourselves  in  trust  and 
service. 

When  one,  accustomed  to  think  in  the  forms  of  one  of  the  three 
theories  of  the  first  class  already  criticised,  begins  to  think  in  the 
lines  of  Christian  ethics,  he  is  surprised  at  new  and  unfamiliar 
moral  conceptions,  and  finds  a  new  significance,  reality,  and  power 
in  the  law  of  God  and  in  the  Christian  life.  He  is  no  longer 
dealing  with  abstractions  as  the  objects  of  love,  but  with  the  liv¬ 
ing  God  “  with  whom  he  has  to  do,”  the  present  God  who  “  besets 
him  behind  and  before  and  lays  his  hand  upon  him  ”  ;  and  with 
living  men,  women,  and  children,  of  whatever  character,  attain¬ 
ments  and  condition,  who  come  within  the  range  of  his  action 
and  influence.  He  is  to  love  all  these ;  and  his  love  is  to  be  of 
that  kind  which  our  Saviour  illustrated  in  the  story  of  the  good 
Samaritan.  One  may  easily  delude  himself  with  thinking  that  he 
chooses  the  superior  good  in  preference  to  the  inferior,  that  he 
chooses  the  highest  good  of  the  universe,  or  that  he  chooses  holi¬ 
ness  for  its  own  sake,  while  he  has  no  love  to  his  neighbor  as 
himself.  Christ  does  not  say  that  at  the  judgment  he  accepts 
men  because  they  have  chosen  the  superior  good  in  preference  to 
the  inferior,  or  have  chosen  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number,  or  have  chosen  holiness  for  its  own  sake ;  but  because 
they  have  rendered  service  to  him  by  serving  their  fellow- men 
when  in  need. 

3.  Christian  ethics  takes  up  into  itself  all  that  is  true  in  the  three 
theories  of  the  first  class.  Each  of  these  theories  is  a  partial 
truth  rather  than  an  unmixed  error.  Each  presents  a  single 
aspect  of  truth  as  the  whole.  Christian  ethics  presents  the  real 
and  all-comprehending  principle  of  the  law,  which  takes  up  all 
these  partial  aspects  of  the  truth. 

Christian  ethics  takes  up  the  truth  in  egoistic  hedonism.  It 
teaches  that  a  person  is  under  obligation  to  seek  his  own  true 
good,  his  real  well-being ;  that  he  has  no  right  to  sacrifice  the  real 
to  any  apparent  good,  the  superior  to  any  inferior  good,  whatever 
amount  of  enjoyment  the  apparent  or  inferior  good  may  give. 
Thus  Moses  is  commended  for  estimating  spiritual  good  in  the 
service  of  God  as  superior  to  all  the  pleasures  of  sin ;  as  greater 
riches  than  the  treasures  of  Egypt.  It  is  said  that  Jesus,  “  for 
the  joy  which  was  set  before  him,  endured  the  cross,  despising 
the  shame.”  And  Christ  appeals  to  sinners  to  have  regard  to 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


1S3 

their  true  good  :  “  What  doth  it  profit  a  man  to  gain  the  whole 
world  and  forfeit  his  life?  ”  1  It  is  a  motive  to  a  higher  life  which 
a  person  sunk  in  selfishness  is  still  capable  of  appreciating.  It  is 
an  appeal  to  common  prudence,  enlightening  it  with  the  knowledge 
of  man’s  relation  and  duty  to  God,  of  his  immortality  and  his 
capacity  for  the  imperishable  riches  of  righteousness.  The  true 
development  of  man  forbids  him  to  be  indifferent  to  his  own  true 
well-being.  Christianity  does  not  aim  to  unmake  a  man  nor  to 
stunt  his  growth,  but  to  develop  him  to  the  highest  perfection  of 
humanity.  It  demands  no  self-denial  as  good  in  itself  apart  from 
the  rational  ends  for  which  it  is  necessary,  and  no  self-renunciation 
which  is  not  essential  to  his  highest  perfection.  The  error  of 
egoistic  hedonism  is  that  it  presents  this  single  aspect  of  right 
character  as  the  whole,  this  subordinate  choice  as  the  choice  of 
the  supreme  end  of  all  right  action.  Thus  it  substitutes  the  part 
for  the  whole,  and  identifies  the  character  which  it  requires  with 
selfishness. 

Christian  ethics  takes  up  into  itself  also  all  that  is  true  in  utili¬ 
tarianism.  The  law  requires  us  to  choose  our  neighbor  as,  equally 
with  ourselves  in  our  common  relations  to  God,  the  object  of 
trust  and  service.  Pertinent  to  the  point  now  under  considera¬ 
tion  is  the  question,  What  service  are  we  to  render  to  him? 
Christian  ethics  answers,  We  are  to  seek  to  secure  to  him,  equally 
as  to  ourselves,  true  well-being,  determined  to  be  such  by  the 
eternal  truth  and  law  of  God.  Here  we  find  the  real  place  in 
ethics  for  the  true  or  highest  good.  It  is  not  to  be  chosen  as  the 
supreme  object  of  action  ;  for  that  must  be  a  person  or  persons. 
But  within  the  sphere  of  getting  and  possessing,  well-being  or  the 
true  good  is  the  supreme  object  to  be  sought  for  the  person 
served.  Christian  ethics,  therefore,  agrees  with  utilitarianism  in 
teaching  that  the  law  of  love  requires  us  to  seek  for  ourselves  and 
for  all  men  well-being  or  the  true  good  ;  and  this  must  always  be 
also  the  greatest  good.  It  does  not  sever  the  general  well-being 
and  the  rational  end  for  which  the  universe  exists  from  the  well¬ 
being  and  rational  end  for  which  every  personal  being  should  live. 
Thus  utilitarianism  is  in  error  because  it  presents  a  partial  truth 
as  the  real  and  all-comprehending  principle  of  ethics. 

In  taking  up  the  truths  in  these  two  theories  Christianity  rejects 
the  error  common  to  them  both,  that  the  good  consists  in  the 

1  Heb.  xi.  24-27 ;  xii.  2  ;  Mark  viii.  36. 


1 84  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


greatest  happiness  empirically  ascertained.  It  assumes  that  the 
good  is  to  be  determined  by  rational  standards  of  worth  and  by 
the  law  of  God.  What  truth  and  law  are  is  not  to  be  inferred 
from  the  good,  but  what  the  good  is  must  be  ascertained  and 
determined  from  the  law.  In  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  Wisdom 
personified  declares  :  “  The  Lord  possessed  me  in  the  beginning 
of  his  way,  before  his  works  of  old.  I  was  set  up  from  everlasting 
from  the  beginning,  or  ever  the  earth  was.  .  .  .  When  he  marked 
out  the  foundations  of  the  earth,  then  I  was  by  him  as  a  master- 
workman.”  This  is  a  poetical  representation  of  the  fundamental 
reality  that  before  the  universe  was,  all  principles  and  laws  of 
reason,  all  ideals  of  perfection  and  good  are  eternal  in  the  mind 
of  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  and  are  the  principles  and  laws,  the 
archetypal  pattern,  which  determine  the  constitution  of  the  uni¬ 
verse.  Therefore  it  is  truth  and  law  which  determine  what  the 
good  is,  not  the  good  which  determines  what  truth  and  law  are. 
Christianity  recognizes  truth  and  law  as  having  a  basis  independent 
of  all  that  is  finite,  in  the  divine  Reason  which  is  unconditioned 
and  eternal. 

Christian  ethics  takes  up  also  all  that  is  true  in  the  theory  of 
rectitude.  We  are  to  love  holiness  for  its  own  sake ;  not  indeed 
as  an  abstraction,  but  as  seen  in  God  or  in  Christ  or  in  holy  men 
and  women,  or  conceived  of  and  aspired  to  as  to  be  realized  in 
ourselves  or  others.  The  theory  of  rectitude  declares  a  great  and 
essential  truth.  Its  error  is  that  it  presents  this  single  aspect  of  a 
right  character  as  if  it  were  the  whole.  It  limits  the  love  re¬ 
quired  in  the  law  to  the  love  of  complacency,  the  attraction  and 
affinity  which  a  good  man  feels  for  like  character  with  his  own  or 
of  superior  excellence.  Thus  it  practically  excludes  benevolence, 
the  other  aspect  of  love,  and  leaves  no  place  for  love  of  the 
wicked. 

Thus  Christian  ethics  takes  up  into  itself  the  truth  in  each  of 
these  three  theories.  It  answers  both  of  the  questions,  What  is 
the  object  of  the  right  supreme  choice  or  love?  and,  What  must 
the  Christian  seek  to  obtain  for  the  person  or  persons  loved? 
The  object  of  the  Christian’s  love  is  himself  and  all  men  in 
subordination  to  love  to  God  as  supreme.  The  object  to  be 
attained  is  true  perfection  and  well-being  as  determined  by  the 
truth  and  law  and  ideals  eternal  in  God  the  absolute  Spirit. 
This  good  or  well-being  consists  in  the  perfection  of  the  man ; 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


I85 


his  consequent  harmony  with  himself,  with  the  constitution  and 
development  of  the  universe,  and  with  God ;  and  the  happiness 
inseparable  therefrom.  The  Christian,  in  his  love  to  his  neighbor 
as  himself,  seeks  to  realize  ideal  perfection  and  well-being  for 
every  person  individually  as  well  as  for  himself.  In  love  to  man 
as  subordinate  to  love  to  God  the  Christian  is  also  to  seek  to 
realize  the  ideal  of  perfection  and  well-being  for  society.  Thus 
the  whole  realm  of  personality  is  the  object  of  his  loving  service 
seeking  to  realize  the  perfection  and  well-being  of  the  individual 
and  of  society  in  accordance  with  the  eternal  principles,  laws,  and 
ideals  of  reason.  The  realization  of  this  good  among  men  is 
found  in  the  establishment  and  progressive  development  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  This  accords  with  the  teaching  of 
Christ,  who  bids  us  to  pray,  “  Thy  kingdom  come.  Thy  will  be 
done,  on  earth,  as  it  is  in  heaven.”  And  his  command  and 
promise  are,  “  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  right¬ 
eousness,  and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you.”  We  are 
not  to  seek  first  for  what  we  can  get,  possess,  and  use,  and  so 
attain  the  kingdom  of  God.  We  are  to  seek  first  the  kingdom  of 
God  and  his  righteousness,  and  thus  attain  all  the  other  things  for 
the  possession  and  use  of  ourselves  and  of  all  men. 

Christian  ethics  presents  the  love  required  in  the  law  in  both 
its  aspects,  as  righteousness  and  benevolence.  The  love  is  benev¬ 
olence  regulated  by  law ;  that  is,  by  righteousness.  Righteous¬ 
ness  and  benevolence  are  the  two  inseparable  aspects  of  love,  and 
are  both  included  in  it.  If  the  righteousness  is  absent  the  benev¬ 
olence  defeats  itself  and  effects  evil  instead  of  good.  If  the 
benevolence  is  absent  the  righteousness  is  no  longer  an  obeying 
of  the  law  and  ceases  to  be  righteousness.  Righteousness,  there¬ 
fore,  can  no  longer  be  misrepresented  as  in  antagonism  to  love 
nor  even  be  put  into  antithesis  to  it. 

We  have  now  left  behind  all  ethical  theories  which  rest  on  the 
assumption  that  the  answer  to  the  question,  What  is  the  summum 
bonum  or  highest  good?  is  in  itself  the  answer  to  the  question, 
What  does  the  law,  in  its  real  principle,  require?  and  have  extri¬ 
cated  ourselves  from  the  never-ending  circuits  in  which  thought 
has  so  long  been  involved  in  its  attempts  to  construct  ethics  on 
that  presupposition.  While  not  regarding  happiness  as  the  ob¬ 
ject  of  the  supreme  choice,  Christian  ethics  does  not  exclude  it 
from  the  good  which  love  seeks  for  all  men.  Even  the  later 


1 86  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


Stoics  recognized  prudence  as  essential  in  a  right  character. 
Epictetus  says  :  “  If  I  am  going  to  sail  I  choose  the  best  ship  and 
the  best  pilot,  and  I  wait  for  the  fairest  weather  that  my  circum¬ 
stances  and  duty  will  allow.  Prudence  and  propriety,  the  princi¬ 
ples  which  the  gods  have  given  me  for  the  direction  of  my 
conduct,  require  this  of  me ;  but  they  require  no  more.  And  if, 
notwithstanding,  a  storm  arises,  which  neither  the  strength  of  the 
vessel  nor  the  skill  of  the  pilot  are  likely  to  withstand,  I  give  my¬ 
self  no  trouble  about  the  consequences.  All  that  I  had  to  do 
has  been  done  already.  The  director  of  my  conduct  never  com¬ 
mands  me  to  be  miserable,  anxious,  despairing,  or  afraid.  Whether 
we  be  drowned  or  come  to  a  harbor  is  the  business  of  Jupiter, 
not  mine.  I  leave  it  entirely  to  his  determination,  nor  ever  break 
my  rest  with  considering  which  way  he  is  likely  to  decide  it,  but 
receive  whatever  comes  with  equal  indifference  and  security.” 
And  those  who  have  held  the  theory  of  rectitude  have  not  been 
able  practically  to  exclude  a  regard  for  happiness.  On  the  other 
hand  Christian  ethics  cannot  reckon  happiness  or  enjoyment  as 
the  supreme  end  of  action  even  in  the  sphere  of  getting  and  pos¬ 
sessing  ;  but  only  as  an  incidental  and  natural  result  inseparable 
from  right  action  and  the  attainment  of  its  legitimate  objects. 
Happiness  or  enjoyment  is  spontaneous  and  independent  of  the  will 
as  an  incidental  result  both  of  action  and  achievement,  and  of  the 
acquisition,  possession,  and  use  of  the  object  sought.  Happiness,  as 
thus  resulting  spontaneously  from  action,  achievement,  and  acquisi¬ 
tion,  and  from  the  objects  acquired,  possessed,  and  used,  is  ultimate. 
But  just  for  the  reason  that  it  is  a  spontaneous  and  natural  result, 
independent  of  the  will,  it  cannot  itself  be  the  supreme  object  of 
the  choice.  This  choice  must  be  of  the  action  and  achievement, 
and  of  the  objects  acquired  and  possessed,  which  are  the  sources 
of  the  enjoyment.  And  there  must  be  some  antecedent  desire 
for  these,  some  interest  in  them  other  than  the  desire  of  the 
ultimate  enjoyment ;  otherwise  no  spontaneous  enjoyment  in 
them  would  be  possible.  Here  we  have  an  old  distinction  in 
theology  between  the  bonum  summum  and  the  bonum  ultimatum . 
Happiness  is  the  ultimate ;  but  it  cannot  be  the  object  of  choice 
as  the  supreme  good.  It  is  through  overlooking  this  distinction 
that  moralists  fall  into  these  ethical  errors.  The  hedonist  substi¬ 
tutes  the  ultimate  spontaneous  enjoyment,  over  which  the  will 
has  no  direct  control,  for  the  sources  of  the  enjoyment;  and  the 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW  1 8 7 

theory  of  rectitude  makes  virtue  itself  the  supreme  object  entirely 
abstracted  from  the  enjoyment  which  is  inseparable  from  it. 

In  conclusion,  the  following  are  found  to  be  the  points  which 
distinguish  Christian  ethics  from  the  theories  of  the  first  class. 
It  does  not  begin  with  happiness  and  determine  empirically  what 
the  good  is,  but  determines  by  the  standards  of  reason  and  divine 
revelation  what  the  true  good  is. 

It  makes  the  object  of  right  action  to  be  persons,  God,  and 
our  neighbor  as  ourselves,  not  things,  qualities,  or  powers. 

It  recognizes  trust  and  service  to  persons  as  the  sphere  of 
moral  action ;  not  merely  the  action  of  getting,  possessing,  and 
using.  The  latter  it  regards  as  subordinate  to  the  former  and 
as  deriving  its  moral  character  as  right  or  wrong  from  the 
former. 

It  makes  the  good  to  consist,  not  in  happiness  only  nor  in 
character  only,  but  in  the  perfection  of  the  man,  his  consequent 
harmony  with  himself,  with  the  constitution  and  course  of  the 
universe,  and  with  God,  and  the  happiness  spontaneously  re¬ 
sulting  therefrom. 

It  recognizes  righteousness  and  benevolence  as  two  elements 
included  in  the  love  required  by  the  law  and  both  indispensable 
and  essential  to  it  as  love. 

It  makes  the  love  universal,  not  severing  the  well-being  of  the 
individual  from  the  well-being  of  the  whole,  nor  the  supreme  aim 
of  the  individual  life  from  the  supreme  aim  of  the  whole  moral 
system,  nor  righteousness  from  benevolence,  nor  love  to  God  from 
love  to  man,  nor  admitting  any  antagonism  between  these  ;  and 
recognizing  God’s  love  to  his  creatures  as  the  eternal  consent  of 
his  will  to  the  same  law  of  love  which  he  requires  man  to  obey ; 
and  in  the  establishment  and  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  giving  scope  for  the  full  exercise  of  love  in  all  its  aspects  by 
both  God  and  man. 

It  has  been  objected  that  the  doctrine  that  love  to  God  and 
to  our  neighbor  as  ourselves  is  the  essence  of  right  character  is 
a  form  without  positive  contents.  This  objection,  it  is  now  evi¬ 
dent,  is  founded  on  an  entire  misapprehension  of  the  doctrine. 
The  love  required  by  the  law  carries  in  it  the  devotion  of  all  our 
energies  to  God  and  our  neighbor  as  to  ourselves  in  both  the 
possible  lines  of  human  action,  reception  and  production,  trust 
and  service ;  and  the  service  to  man  consists  in  seeking  the  uni- 


1 88  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


versal  well-being  in  the  advancement  of  God’s  kingdom  of  right¬ 
eousness  and  peace  on  earth  and  in  heaven. 

John  Stuart  Mill  objects  against  Christian  ethics  :  44  Its  ideal  is 
negative  rather  than  positive  ;  passive  rather  than  active ;  inno¬ 
cence  rather  than  nobleness ;  abstinence  from  evil  rather  than 
energetic  pursuit  of  good  ;  in  its  precepts  4  Thou  shalt  not  ’  pre¬ 
dominates  unduly  over  4  Thou  shalt.’  In  its  horror  of  sensuality 
it  made  an  idol  of  asceticism,  which  has  been  gradually  compro¬ 
mised  away  into  one  of  legality.  What  little  recognition  the  idea 
of  obligation  to  the  public  obtains  in  modern  morality,  is  derived 
from  Greek  and  Roman  sources,  not  from  Christian.” 1  The 
slightest  acquaintance  with  Christianity  exposes  the  erroneousness 
of  all  this.  Christianity,  above  every  other  conception  ever 
formed  of  man,  reveals  the  greatness,  the  dignity,  the  worth  of 
every  individual  man.  It  reveals  him  as  created  in  God’s  like¬ 
ness,  the  object  of  God’s  government  and  care,  bearing  in  him 
the  immortal  and  the  divine ;  a  being  of  so  great  worth  that  God 
is  in  Christ  reconciling  him  to  God ;  that  the  Christ  tasted  death 
for  every  man ;  that  every  one,  even  though  a  sinner,  may  return 
in  penitential  trust  to  God  and  be  accepted  by  him ;  that  every 
one  may  enter  into  his  closet  and  commune  with  God,  as  it  were, 
face  to  face ;  and  that  in  view  of  these  relations  to  God  the  divine 
command  to  all  Christians  is,  See  that  ye  walk  worthy  of  God. 
As  to  the  charge  that  Christian  morality  is  negative,  passive,  and 
ascetic,  rather  than  positive  and  energizing,  the  fact  that  the 
command  to  love  God  with  all  our  hearts  and  our  neighbor  as 
ourselves  is  the  real  principle  of  the  law,  is  the  overwhelming  refu¬ 
tation  of  it.  If  Paul  or  John  or  Peter  or  the  other  great  heroes 
of  the  Christian  faith  are  examples  of  the  influence  of  Christian 
ethics,  what  is  there  in  any  of  them  suggesting  the  merely  passive 
or  negative,  or  the  withdrawing  from  energetic  action  for  truth 
and  righteousness  and  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  in  opposition  to 
the  powers  of  sin  and  evil?  In  fact,  it  is  Christ  and  Christianity 
that  have  made  the  ideas  of  the  worth  of  man,  the  sacredness  of 
his  rights,  the  obligation  to  serve  him  in  love  and  the  expectation 
of  progress,  powers  in  the  history  of  civilization.  What  is  most 
striking  in  Mr.  Mill’s  criticism  is  its  exhibition  of  his  astonishing 
ignorance  of  the  real  significance  of  the  teaching  of  Christ  and 
his  apostles. 


1  Essay  on  Liberty,  pp.  95-97. 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


189 


4.  The  real  principle  of  the  law  has  been  stated  in  different 
ways  without  surrendering  the  distinctive  characteristic  of  Chris¬ 
tian  ethics.  The  difference  is  in  the  way  of  stating  the  object  of 
the  love  which  is  the  essence  of  all  right  character. 

Julius  Muller  teaches  that  the  great  and  first  commandment, 
Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  lays  claim 
to  the  entire  inward  life  ;  and  that  love  to  man  and  all  the  duties 
included  in  it  are  included  or  implied  in  love  to  God.1  This  has 
been  the  more  common  conception.  It  is  true  that,  without  love 
to  God  as  supreme,  love  to  man  in  its  full  significance  is  impos¬ 
sible.  But  there  are  some  objections  to  this  way  of  putting  it. 

If  the  real  principle  of  the  law  is  thus  defined  it  does  not  in¬ 
clude  the  requirement  of  love  to  man.  If  love  to  God  is  the 
essence  of  right  character  then  love  to  man  is  not  of  the  essence 
of  right  character.  Then  the  inference  would  be  that  we  are  not 
to  render  service  to  man  because  we  love  him,  that  the  service  is 
not  the  spontaneous  expression  of  love  ;  but  we  render  him  ser¬ 
vice  solely  because  God  has  commanded  it  and  it  is  our  duty  to 
obey  God.  Thus  it  tends  to  throw  love  to  man  into  the  back¬ 
ground,  to  develop  a  religion  of  piety  toward  God  manifesting 
itself  in  worship  and  spiritual  communion  with  him  to  the  neglect 
of  practical  work  in  doing  good  to  men  in  the  spontaneity  of  love 
for  them.  And  this  way  of  defining  the  real  principle  of  the  law 
and  the  essence  of  right  character  does  not  harmonize  with  the 
teachings  of  Christ  and  his  apostles.  When  Christ  said,  This  is 
the  great  and  first  commandment,  he  said  also,  The  second  is 
like  unto  it ;  that  is,  essentially  the  same  in  kind.  And  he  did 
not  say  that  the  whole  law  and  the  prophets  hang  on  the  first  of 
these  ;  but  on  these  two.  Then  it  is  not  the  first  alone  from 
which  all  the  specific  requirements  of  the  law  are  developed,  but 
it  is  “these  two.”  Thus  Christ  teaches  that  these  two  together 
constitute  the  original  and  real  principle  of  the  law  from  which 
all  duties  to  God  and  man  are  developed ;  and  that  love  to  God 
and  to  man  together  constitute  the  essence  of  all  right  character. 
And  in  many  passages  in  the  New  Testament  we  find  a  similar 
recognition  of  love  to  man  as  with  love  to  God  included  in  the 
real  principle  of  the  law  and  in  the  essence  of  right  character : 
“  He  who  loveth  his  neighbor  hath  fulfilled  the  law.”  “  Love 
worketh  no  ill  to  his  neighbor ;  therefore  love  is  the  fulfilment 
1  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  Bk.  i.  subdivision  i.  chap.  iii.  section  i. 


190  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


of  the  law.”  “For  the  whole  law  is  fulfilled  in  one  word,  even 
in  this:  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.”  “He  who 
loveth  not  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God 
whom  he  hath  not  seen?”  “Pure  religion  and  undefiled  before 
our  God  and  Father  is  this,  to  visit  the  fatherless  and  widows  in 
their  affliction.”  And  the  love  which  Paul  describes  so  beauti¬ 
fully  in  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  and  which  he  declares 
to  be  indispensable  to  give  virtue  to  the  most  splendid  outward 
acts,  is,  as  is  evident  from  the  detailed  description,  love  to  man.1 

According  to  President  Edwards,  the  object  of  the  love  re¬ 
quired  in  the  law  is  being  in  general,  or  universal  being.  This 
also  is  a  true  statement.  But  it  is  open  to  the  criticism  that  it 
is  abstract  and  cold  ;  that  one  cannot  love  being  in  general,  but 
only  particular  beings.  It  may  be  replied  that  it  was  intended 
as  a  logical  formula  to  include  under  one  general  phrase  all  be¬ 
ings  ;  that  it  does  not  deny  that  love  in  actual  exercise  must  be 
love  to  a  particular  being,  but  affirms  that  it  must  be  love  to  all 
beings.  A  more  important  criticism  is  that  it  does  not  distin¬ 
guish  God  from  man  as  the  supreme  object  of  love ;  and,  there¬ 
fore,  can  distinguish  him  as  entitled  to  more  love  and  service 
than  man  only  by  his  greater  quantity  of  being.  And  because 
Edwards  identifies  love  with  benevolence,  his  definition  allows  no 
recognition  of  righteousness  in  the  real  principle  of  the  law  and 
no  place  for  it  in  the  essence  of  right  character. 

A  third  statement  may  be  this :  The  object  of  love  is  all 
rational  and  personal  beings  in  their  respective  relations  to  each 
other  in  the  unity  of  the  moral  system.  This  is  an  exact  and 
true  statement.  It  has  the  advantage  that  it  brings  to  the  front 
the  unity  of  God  and  all  rational  creatures  in  the  moral  system 
under  the  same  eternal  law.  It  thus  sets  forth  the  basis  of  the 
unity  and  likeness  of  the  two  great  commandments.  At  the  same 
time  it  presents  the  true  basis  for  the  distribution  of  duties  to 
God  and  his  rational  creatures  according  to  their  relations  in 
the  system.  God  must  be  the  supreme  object  of  love  and  of 
the  trust  and  service  in  which  it  is  expressed,  because  he  is  the 
source  of  all  law  and  the  originator  and  Lord  of  the  moral  system. 
And  all  his  rational  creatures  stand  on  an  equality  before  him  as 
alike  subjects  of  his  law  and  objects  of  his  righteous  good-will, 
which  is  love. 

1  Rom.  xiii.  8,  io;  Gal.  v.  14;  1  John  iv.  20;  James  i.  27  ;  1  Cor.  xiii. 


THE  REAL  PRINCIPLE  OF  THE  LAW 


191 

But  I  think  that  Christ’s  statement  of  the  two  great  command¬ 
ments,  of  their  likeness,  and  as  together  constituting  the  real 
principle  on  which  hang  the  whole  law  and  the  prophets,  is  the 
best,  whether  for  popular  use  or  for  philosophical  exactness  and 
completeness.  When  the  whole  sphere  of  personality  is  presented 
as  “  the  realm  of  ends,”  to  which  all  our  energies  are  to  be 
directed  in  the  service  of  love,  we  are  in  danger  of  losing  our¬ 
selves  in  its  vastness.  In  the  solitude  of  his  own  thoughts  and 
emotions  one  may  think  he  loves  all  mankind  and  is  interested  in 
the  progress  of  man ;  and  yet  he  may  not  exercise  Christian  love 
and  render  Christian  trust  and  service  to  those  with  whom  he 
associates  in  the  intercourse  of  daily  life.  The  Christian  law  of 
love,  as  proclaimed  by  Christ,  presents  the  whole  sphere  of  per¬ 
sonality  as  the  object  of  interest  and  love,  but  it  individualizes 
the  persons.  He  does  not  say,  Thou  shalt  love  mankind,  but 
Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  The  Christian  is  to 
love  himself ;  to  see  to  it  that  he  lives  and  acts  so  as  to 
insure  his  own  normal  development  to  his  highest  power,  per¬ 
fection,  and  well-being.  He  is  to  love  his  neighbor,  that  is, 
mankind  individualized,  every  one  who  is  near  him,  who  is 
within  the  sphere  of  his  personal  influence.  And  the  love  both 
of  self  and  the  neighbor  must  be  subordinate  to  love  to  God 
as  supreme.  The  true  progress  of  society  is  possible  only  as 
individuals  are  renovated  in  character  and  induced  to  come 
into  harmony  with  God,  and  our  service  to  men  must  be 
rendered  trusting  in  God  and  working  together  with  him.  The 
particular  acts  of  trust  or  service  in  which  under  given  circum¬ 
stances  Christian  love  will  best  express  itself  must  be  determined 
by  each  person  for  himself  in  the  light  of  his  best  attainable 
knowledge  of  what  under  the  circumstances  is  wise  and  right. 
Christian  love  is  good-will  regulated  in  its  exercise  by  wisdom 
and  righteousness.  Christ  presents  this  comprehensive  sphere 
of  personality  as  the  object  of  service  when  he  says,  “  Seek  ye 
first  the  kingdom  of  God- and  his  righteousness”  (Matth.  vi.  33). 
Christian  love  prompts  every  Christian  to  do  his  utmost  to  bring 
all  persons  within  the  sphere  of  his  influence  to  know,  trust,  and 
serve  God  as  revealed  in  Christ  and  ever  present  in  the  Holy 
Spirit  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself,  and  so,  as  much  as  in 
him  is,  to  aid  in  transforming  human  society  into  the  kingdom 
of  God.  This  grand  aim  does  not  exclude  geniality  of  spirit,  the 


192  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

courtesies  of  life,  sympathy  and  compassion,  readiness  to  lend  a 
hand  to  help  in  all  the  daily  intercourse  of  life.  On  the  contrary, 
Christian  love  spontaneously  expresses  itself  in  these,  and  as  thus 
spontaneously  expressed  they  enhance  the  Christian’s  influence 
and  promote  the  progress  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ. 


CHAPTER  XXI 


THE  ESSENTIAL  AND  DISTINCTIVE  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIN 

From  the  point  of  view  now  attained  it  is  possible  to  give  a 
clear  and  exact  definition  of  sinful  character  in  its  true  signifi¬ 
cance,  and  under  it  to  comprehend  what  is  true  in  various  defini¬ 
tions  of  sin  which  have  been  subjects  of  controversy. 

I.  Sin  the  Supreme  Choice  of  Self.  —  Sin  is  the  choice  of 
self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service. 

i.  This  is  sinful  character  in  its  primary  and  essential  signifi¬ 
cance.  It  is  this  which  distinctively  characterizes  an  act  or 
character  as  sinful.  It  is  the  sinful  character  which  manifests 
itself  or  finds  expression  in  every  sinful  act. 

Because  it  is  the  choice  of  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust 
and  service,  it  must  present  itself  in  two  forms  :  self-trusting  and 
self-serving. 

Each  of  these,  again,  will  present  itself  in  two  forms :  the 
former  as  self-sufficiency  and  self-glorifying,  the  latter  as  self- 
will  and  self-seeking. 

The  supreme  choice  of  self  acts  in  these  four  forms  in  every 
sinful  character.  But  in  different  persons  they  appear  in  different 
degrees  and  proportions. 

The  sinful  character  as  thus  defined  may  be  called  selfishness. 
But  selfishness  as  often  understood  is  restricted  to  self-seeking, 
that  is,  getting,  possessing,  and  using  for  one’s  self.  When  used 
to  denote  the  sinful  character  in  its  primary  and  essential  mean¬ 
ing,  it  must  be  understood  as  comprehending  all  the  four  forms 
in  which  the  supreme  choice  acts.  To  avoid  this  misapprehen¬ 
sion  it  is  often  called  egoism.  1  shall  use  both  names  in  the 
more  comprehensive  meaning  as  synonymous. 
vol.  n.  — 13 


194  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


The  seminal  principle  or  root  of  all  sin  is  the  choice  of  self  as 
the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service.  Out  of  this  all  sinful 
character  and  action  grow  and  by  it  they  are  pervaded,  vitalized, 
and  charactered.  So  the  seminal  principle  or  root  of  all  holiness, 
is  the  choice  of  God  as  supreme  and  of  our  neighbor  as  ourselves 
as  the  object  of  trust  and  service.  Out  of  this  all  holy  char¬ 
acter  and  action  grow,  and  by  it  they  are  pervaded,  vitalized,  and 
charactered. 

In  the  actual  development  of  the  sinful  character,  self-trusting 
is  deeper  and  more  radical  than  self-serving.  Out  of  the  self- 
trusting  the  self-serving  seems  to  grow.  And  in  self-trusting,  the 
self-sufficiency,  the  spirit  of  proud,  arrogant,  and  defiant  self- 
assertion  and  independence,  precedes  the  self-righteousness  or 
self-glorifying,  which  presupposes  it  and  issues  from  it.  There¬ 
fore  selfishness  in  the  form  of  self-sufficiency  is  the  primitive  seed 
or  root  of  all  sin.  From  it  all  sinful  character  and  action  grow, 
and  by  it  they  are  vitalized  and  charactered  as  sin.  Here  again 
the  origin  and  growth  of  sin  correspond  as  its  contrary  with  the 
origin  and  growth  of  holiness.  Both  because  man  is  a  creature 
and  because  he  is  a  sinner  and  so  dependent  on  God,  his  right 
character  can  begin  only  in  trust  in  God.  God  is  his  spiritual 
environment.  “  In  him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.” 
Man  in  his  normal  state  is  in  harmony  and  union  with  God, 
receiving  continuously  from  him  the  spiritual  influences  by  which 
he  lives  and  grows  and  works  in  the  spiritual  life,  as  a  plant 
depends  on  its  environment  and  continuously  receives  from  it  the 
quickening  and  nourishment  by  which  it  lives  and  grows.  The 
new  life  of  a  sinner  in  his  conversion  must  begin  in  his  putting 
his  trust  in  God  in  the  recognition  of  his  dependence,  sinfulness, 
and  need.  In  this  act  of  trust  he  chooses  God  as  the  supreme 
object  of  trust ;  and  in  the  same  act  he  renounces  himself  as  the 
supreme  object  of  trust.  This  trust  or  faith  in  God  is  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  his  right  character,  and  from  it  all  his  acts  of  obedience 
and  service  flow.  This  is  evident  both  from  scripture  and  from 
philosophy.  So  in  sin  man  chooses  himself  as  the  supreme  object 
of  trust,  and  therein  repudiates  God  and  refuses  to  trust  him.  In 
so  doing  he  repudiates  his  dependence  on  God  both  as  a  creature 
and  as  a  sinner,  and  all  the  weakness  and  wants  incident  thereto, 
and  sets  himself  up  in  self-sufficiency  as  independent  of  God. 
Thus  as  trust  in  God  is  the  only  beginning  of  a  right  character  in 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIN 


195 


a  finite  person,  so  choosing  one’s  self  as  the  supreme  object  of 
trust,  setting  up  for  one’s  self  in  self-sufficiency  and  therein 
renouncing  God  as  the  object  of  trust  is  the  beginning  of 
all  sin. 

“  For  then  we  fell  when  we  ’gan  first  t’  essay 
By  stealth  of  our  own  selves  something  to  been 
Uncentring  ourselves  from  our  great  stay, 

Which  rupture  we  new  liberty  did  ween, 

And  from  that  prank  right  jolly  wits  ourselves  did  deem.”1 

This  self-sufficiency  issues  in  self-righteousness  and  self-glorifi¬ 
cation.  When  the  self-sufficient  man  reflects  on  himself  he 
ascribes  to  himself  the  credit  of  all  his  doings.  He  is  like  Nebu¬ 
chadnezzar  when  he  said  :  “  Is  not  this  great  Babylon  which  I 
have  built  for  the  royal  dwelling-place  by  the  might  of  my  power 
and  for  the  glory  of  my  majesty?”2  He  is  like  the  Pharisee  in 
self-righteousness,  enumerating  his  punctilious  observances,  thank¬ 
ing  God  that  he  is  not  as  other  men  are,  and  thinking  that  of 
himself  without  trusting  in  God  he  has  kept  the  law  and  won 
heaven  by  his  own  merit. 

As  in  trusting  God  the  faith  works  in  loving  service  to  God  and 
man,  so  in  trusting  self  the  self-sufficiency  and  self-righteousness 
work  in  the  service  of  self.  This  self-serving  manifests  itself  first 
as  self-will.  The  sinner  sets  up  his  own  will  as  law  and  refuses 
obedience  to  God.  Arrogantly  and  defiantly  he  asks  with  Phar¬ 
aoh  :  “  Who  is  Jehovah,  that  I  should  hearken  to  his  voice?” 
and  with  the  wicked  mighty  ones  in  Job  :  “  What  is  the  Almighty 
that  we  should  serve  him?  And  what  profit  should  we  have  if 
we  pray  unto  him?”  The  self-serving  manifests  itself  also  as  self- 
seeking.  In  the  sphere  of  getting,  possessing,  and  using  the 
sinner  gets,  possesses,  and  uses  merely  for  himself.  Here  are 
all  sins  of  the  type  of  covetousness ;  the  selfish  desire  always  for 
more  ;  the  desire  to  get,  possess,  and  use,  which  is  always  insa¬ 
tiable  because  the  acquisitions  are  but  fuel  to  the  desire,  only 
making  it  burn  more  fiercely. 

2.  The  evidence  that  this  is  the  true  conception  of  sin  is  next 
to  be  considered. 

First,  it  is  necessarily  implied  in  the  truth  already  ascertained, 
that  the  object  of  the  right  supreme  choice  is  God  as  supreme  and 
our  neighbor  as  ourselves  in  their  reciprocal  relations  in  the  unity 

2  Dan.  iv.  30. 


1  Sir  Henry  More,  “  Psychozoia.” 


196  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


of  the  moral  system.  If  indeed  the  object  of  the  right  supreme 
choice  were  something  to  be  acquired  and  possessed,  then  the 
object  of  the  sinful  choice  would  be  some  inferior  or  unworthy 
object  in  the  same  sphere.  But  this  it  cannot  be,  because 
the  object  of  the  choice  must  be  a  person  or  persons  to  be 
trusted  and  served.  In  the  sphere  of  personality,  the  object  of 
the  supreme  choice,  which  is  the  seminal  principle,  the  seed  and 
root  of  all  sin,  can  be  only  the  self,  chosen  as  the  supreme  object 
of  trust  and  service  to  the  exclusion  of  God  and  our  neighbor. 
For,  as  we  have  seen,  love  to  God  and  love  to  our  neighbor  as 
ourselves  are  of  the  same  kind  and  one  cannot  exist  without  the 
other.  Therefore,  the  wrong  supreme  choice  cannot  be  love  to 
God  alone,  for  that  necessarily  implies  love  to  our  neighbor  as 
ourselves ;  and  it  cannot  be  love  to  man  alone,  for  that  would 
imply  love  to  God.  It  can  be  only  the  choice  of  self  as  the 
supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  to  the  exclusion  of  God  and 
our  neighbor.  Therefore  sin  in  its  essence  is  supreme  love  to 
self,  isolating  self  as  the  object  of  trust  and  service  from  all  other 
men  and  from  God. 

The  law  of  universal  love  is  fundamental  in  the  constitution  of  a 
moral  system.  There  is  no  other  law,  under  which  it  is  conceiv¬ 
able  that  a  moral  system  could  exist.  That  the  law  of  love  is  the 
supreme  and  universal  law  is  a  first  principle  of  reason,  self-evi¬ 
dent  in  rational  intuition  to  every  person  who  knows  himself  in 
his  actual  relations  to  the  moral  system.  Such  a  person  knows 
that  he  does  not  live  for  himself  alone,  but  that  his  action  affects 
for  good  or  evil  those  who  are  about  him.  And  he  must  know 
that  he  ought  not  to  aim  or  intend  to  live  for  himself  alone  with 
no  regard  to  the  interests  and  rights  of  others.  The  clearness 
and  fulness  with  which  he  sees  this  will  correspond  with  the  clear¬ 
ness  and  fulness  of  his  knowledge  of  himself  and  the  moral  system. 
The  choice  of  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  is  in 
its  essence  the  repudiation  of  the  law  of  love  and  rebellion  against 
its  authority ;  it  is  in  direct  antagonism  and  contradiction  to  the 
constitution  of  the  moral  system,  and  in  all  its  tendencies  subver¬ 
sive  of  it ;  thus  it  is  the  seminal  principle  of  all  sin  and  the  essen¬ 
tial  character  of  a  sinner  in  all  forms  of  sin.  And  I  cannot  think 
of  any  definition  of  sin  which  sets  forth  its  essential  character, 
unless  it  recognizes  it,  either  explicitly  or  implicitly,  as  supreme 
selfishness  or  egoism.  It  is  often  supposed  that  the  direct  con- 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIN 


197 


trary  of  love  is  hatred.  But  this  is  comparatively  a  rare  exercise 
of  the  human  soul  and  is  exercised  against  comparatively  few 
persons.  The  real  contrary  of  love  is  not  hate,  but  selfishness. 

Secondly,  this  definition  of  sin  in  its  essential  character  accords 
with  the  biblical  representations. 

Sin  in  its  origin  is  represented  in  the  Bible  as  selfishness  or 
egoism.  This  is  true  of  its  account  of  the  beginning  of  sin  in 
man.  In  the  twelfth  chapter  of  this  treatise,  containing  an 
examination  of  the  account  of  the  creation  and  the  beginning 
of  human  history  in  the  opening  chapters  of  Genesis,  it  was 
shown  that,  under  the  influence  of  the  serpent,  the  common 
Semitic  representation  of  the  power  of  darkness  and  evil,  the 
woman  was  tempted  to  sin.  “  Ye  shall  be  as  God,”  —  here  the 
temptation  was  to  self-sufficiency  and  self- glorifying  in  the  renun¬ 
ciation  of  dependence  on  God  and  trust  in  him  ;  “  Knowing  good 
and  evil,”  —  you  will  no  longer  be  in  subjection  to  God  to  order 
what  you  may  eat  and  what  you  may  not,  but  will  be  sufficient 
of  yourselves  to  order  your  action  and  to  do  as  you  please ;  “  Ye 
shall  not  surely  die,”  —  here  the  temptation  is  to  self-will,  in 
disobeying  God’s  command  as  not  a  real  law  of  rightful  authority 
and  binding  obligation,  obedience  to  which  was  necessary  to 
well-being ;  the  suggestion  is,  on  the  contrary,  that  by  disobeying 
and  defying  him  in  self-will  you  will  become  wise  and  great,  and 
may  expect  to  become  the  equals  of  God  ;  hidden  in  this  sug¬ 
gestion  is  the  intimation  that  God  imposed  the  restriction 
through  jealousy  of  man  lest  he  should  become  his  equal  and 
a  dangerous  rival ;  thus  the  tempter  belittles  God  and  tries 
to  insinuate  into  the  minds  of  the  first  man  and  woman  a 
heathenish  conception  of  him.  The  temptation  continues, 
“good  for  food,  a  delight  to  the  eye,  and  to  be  desired,”  —  here 
the  temptation  is  to  self-seeking  and  self-indulgence,  to  seeking 
the  chief  good  in  getting,  possessing,  and  using  whatever  satisfies 
appetite,  delights  the  senses,  or  gratifies  desires.  Thus,  accord¬ 
ing  to  this  ancient  narrative,  the  temptation  to  the  first  sin  was 
addressed  to  selfishness  or  egoism  in  each  of  its  essential  forms  : 
to  self-trusting  in  self-sufficiency  and  self-glorifying,  to  self-serving 
in  self-will  and  self-seeking. 

The  sin  was  not  that  they  aspired  to  be  like  God.  The  repre¬ 
sentation  in  Genesis  is  that  they  had  been  created  in  his  likeness 
and  admitted  to  close  intimacy  with  him.  Man  is  constituted 


1 98  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


in  the  likeness  of  God  and  his  true  and  highest  destiny  is  to  be 
in  union  with  God  and  to  be  like  him  in  universal  love.  But 
this  destiny  can  be  realized  only  by  trusting  in  him,  receiving 
his  heavenly  influences  and  obeying  his  law  of  love.  This  is  what 
God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  to  himself  is  effecting  in 
redemption.  And  ages  afterwards,  when  Christ  has  come,  the 
glad  tidings  is  proclaimed  that  men  “  may  become  partakers 
of  the  divine  nature,  having  escaped  from  the  corruption  which 
is  in  the  world  through  lust.”  But  it  is  only  through  trusting 
in  God  and  receiving  his  grace ;  “  seeing  that  his  divine  power 
hath  granted  unto  us  all  things  that  pertain  to  life  and  godliness, 
through  the  knowledge  of  him  who  hath  called  us  by  his  own 
glory  and  virtue ;  whereby  he  hath  given  unto  us  his  precious 
and  exceeding  great  promises ;  that  through  these  we  may 
become  partakers  of  the  divine  nature.”  1  The  sin  of  man,  as 
presented  in  the  opening  of  Genesis,  consists  not  in  his  aspiring 
to  be  like  God  and  to  increase  in  knowledge  and  power  and 
to  satisfy  his  wants,  but  in  his  attempting  to  realize  this  high 
destiny  by  renouncing  God  and  disobeying  his  law ;  choosing 
himself  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  in  self-sufficiency  and 
self- glorifying,  and  as  the  supreme  object  of  service  in  self-will 
and  self-seeking. 

From  hints  in  the  New  Testament,  theologians  have  inferred 
that  the  sin  of  the  fallen  angels  began  in  self-sufficiency  and 
pride.  This  has  been  inferred,  for  example,  from  the  words 
of  Paul :  “  Not  a  novice,  lest  being  lifted  up  with  pride  he  fall 
into  the  condemnation  of  the  devil.”  2 

The  Bible  also  represents  sin  in  its  historical  development  as 
culminating  in  self-exaltation  in  the  spirit  of  self-sufficiency,  self- 
will,  and  self-seeking.  This  Paul  pictures  in  the  coming  “  man 
of  sin,  the  son  of  perdition,”  after  the  type  of  the  Roman 
emperor  demanding  worship  of  himself  as  a  God  and  putting 
to  death  Christians  who  refused  to  offer  incense  to  him  :  “  He 
that  opposeth  and  exalteth  himself  against  all  that  is  called  God 
or  that  is  worshiped  ;  so  that  he  sitteth  in  the  temple  of  God 
setting  himself  forth  as  God.”  3 

That  selfishness  is  the  seminal  principle  of  all  sinful  character 
and  action  in  the  individual  is  implied  in  the  life  and  teaching 
of  Christ.  Christ,  in  his  humiliation,  obedience,  suffering,  and 
1  2  Peter  i.  3,  4.  2  1  Tim.  iii.  6.  3  2  Thess.  ii.  3,  4. 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIN 


199 


death,  reveals  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  for  others  as  essential 
in  love,  both  in  God  and  man.  Therein  he  asserts  and  maintains 
the  inviolable  authority  and  universal  obligation  of  the  law 
of  self-sacrificing  love  and  the  impossibility  of  attaining  any 
real  good  in  disobedience  to  it ;  and  the  certainty  of  perfect 
development,  of  the  greatest  efficiency  and  the  highest  blessed¬ 
ness  and  well-being  to  all  who  live  the  life  of  self-sacrificing  love. 
His  oral  teaching  is  of  the  same  purport.  “  He  who  loseth  his 
life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it  ”  ;  “  Whosoever  will  be  great  among 
you,  let  him  be  your  minister ;  and  whosoever  will  be  chief 
among  you,  let  him  be  your  servant ;  ”  greatness  for  service  and 
greatness  by  service ;  “  even  as  the  Son  of  man  came  not  to 
be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom 
for  many  ”  ;  “I  seek  not  mine  own  will,  but  the  will  of  the 
Father  that  sent  me  ”  ;  “  I  seek  not  my  own  glory.”  And  in 
these  and  similar  utterances  and  the  whole  tenor  of  his  teaching 
he  makes  it  known  that  the  same  spirit  of  self-renouncing  love 
is  indispensable  in  every  one  who  would  be  his  disciple.1  The 
same  is  the  teaching  of  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament.  Paul 
describes  the  self-renouncing  love  of  Christ  in  his  humiliation, 
“  taking  the  form  of  a  servant,  being  made  in  the  likeness  of 
man,”  and  then,  “  being  found  in  fashion  as  a  man,”  his  hum¬ 
bling  himself  still  further  in  obedience  and  suffering  unto  death, 
even  the  death  of  the  cross,  and  says,  “  let  this  mind  be  in  you 
which  was  also  in  Christ  ”  ;  and  in  contrast  with  this  he  declares 
of  sinners,  “all  seek  their  own,  not  the  things  of  Jesus  Christ.” 
He  presents  the  self-sacrificing  love  of  Christ  as  the  great  motive 
to  Christ-like,  self- renouncing  love  :  “  though  he  was  rich,  yet 
for  your  sakes  he  became  poor,  that  you  through  his  poverty 
might  become  rich.”  And  he  declares  that  the  change  in 
sinners  in  turning  to  Christ  is  that  they  no  longer  live  for  them¬ 
selves  :  “  He  died  for  all  that  they  who  live  should  no  longer  live 
unto  themselves,  but  unto  him  who  for  their  sakes  died  and  rose 
again.”  He  represents  the  change  even  as  a  dying,  a  crucifixion  : 
“  I  have  been  crucified  with  Christ ;  yet  I  live ;  and  yet  no 
longer  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me.”  And  he  commands  :  “  Let 
no  man  seek  his  own,  but  each  his  neighbor’s  good.”2  The 

1  Matth.  x.  37-39,  xx.  20-28  ;  John  v.  30,  viii.  50,  vii.  18;  Matth.  xxvi.  39. 

2  Phil.  ii.  5-8,  21  ;  2  Cor.  viii.  9;  v.  15;  Gal.  ii.  20;  1  Cor.  x.  24;  Rom. 
xiv.  7,  8 ;  xv.  2,  3. 


200  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


same  conception  of  Christian  character  in  contrast  with  the 
sinful  pervades  the  Gospel  and  the  Epistles  of  John.  Through 
the  first  of  his  epistles  runs  the  one  thought,  that  in  Christ  the 
divine  light  and  life  and  love  have  come  into  the  world  and 
that  every  disciple  of  Christ  is  a  participator  therein.  The  same 
self-renouncing  love  is  recognized  as  the  essence  of  right  char¬ 
acter  and  of  obedience  to  the  law  by  the  other  writers  of  the 
New  Testament,  and  also  in  the  Old  Testament.  This  biblical 
representation  of  the  Christian  life  in  contrast  with  the  life  of  sin 
shows  that  the  Bible  recognizes,  as  the  essence  of  sinful  character, 
selfishness  or  egoism,  the  love  of  self  as  the  supreme  object  of 
trust  and  service.1 

Augustine  says  :  “If  we  ask  the  cause  of  the  misery  of  the  bad, 
it  occurs  to  us,  and  not  unreasonably,  that  they  are  miserable 
because  they  have  forsaken  God  who  supremely  is,  and  have 
turned  to  themselves  who  have  no  such  essence.  And  this  vice, 
what  else  is  it  called  but  pride  ?  .  .  .  And  what  is  the  origin  of 
our  evil  will  but  pride?  For  pride  is  the  beginning  of  sin. 
And  what  is  pride  but  the  craving  for  undue  exaltation?  And 
this  is  undue  exaltation,  when  the  soul  abandons  Him  to  whom 
it  ought  to  cleave  as  its  end,  and  becomes  an  end  to  itself.  .  .  . 
Therefore  the  Holy  Scriptures  designate  the  proud  as  self-pleasers. 
For  it  is  good  to  have  the  heart  lifted  up,  yet  not  to  one’s  self,  for 
this  is  pride,  but  to  the  Lord,  for  this  is  obedience,  and  can  be 
the  act  only  of  the  humble.  There  is,  therefore,  something  in 
humility  which,  strangely  enough,  exalts  the  heart,  and  something 
in  pride  which  debases  it.  .  .  .  By  craving  to  be  more  man 
becomes  less,  and  by  aspiring  to  be  self-sufficing  he  fell  away 
from  Him  who  truly  suffices  him.  ...  For  that  is  true  which  is 
written,  before  destruction  the  heart  of  man  is  haughty,  and  before 
honor  is  humility.  .  .  .  And  this  is  averred  by  the  sacred  Psalm¬ 
ist  :  ‘  Fill  their  faces  with  shame,  that  they  may  seek  thy  name, 
O  Lord.’  ”  2  The  same  conception  of  sin  is  presented  by  Thomas 
Aquinas,  and  very  commonly  by  the  fathers  and  the  medieval 
schoolmen.  Their  expositions  of  the  doctrine  show  that  they  use 
pride  as  denoting  selfishness  in  its  essential  and  seminal  principle. 

1  “It  cannot  be  but  that  a  creature  love  himself  supremely,  whom  the 
love  of  God  does  not  absorb.”  (Melanchthon,  “Loci,”  1521.) 

2  Civitas  Dei,  Bk.  xii.  chap.  6;  Bk.  xiv.  chap.  13. 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIN 


201 


Pride  and  all  sins  of  that  type  are  included  in  self-sufficiency,  and 
imply  self-will  and  self-seeking.1 

II.  Sin  in  Different  Aspects.  —  While  egoism  or  selfishness 
is  the  seminal  principle  of  all  sin,  it  reveals  itself  in  various  as¬ 
pects.  Some  of  these  aspects  have  been  mistaken  by  theologians 
for  the  essential  and  seminal  principle  itself.  Hence  have  arisen 
controversies  as  to  what  sin  is  in  its  deepest  essence.  It  is  there¬ 
fore  necessary  to  examine  the  characters  thus  severally  presented 
as  the  seminal  essence  of  sin,  and  to  show  that  they  are  them¬ 
selves  different  aspects  or  manifestations  of  the  choice  of  self  as 
the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service ;  that  is,  of  supreme  self¬ 
ishness  or  egoism. 

i.  Sin  is  disobedience  to  God  or  transgression  of  his  law. 

The  defect  of  this  is  that  it  defines  sin  only  by  the  formal  prin¬ 
ciple  of  the  law.  Sin  is  transgression  of  God’s  law.  This  does 
not  declare  what  is  the  real  principle  of  the  requirement  of  the 
law  which  is  transgressed,  nor  the  essential  character  of  the  per¬ 
son  who  transgresses  it.  The  doctrine  that  sin  is  supreme  selfish¬ 
ness  recognizes  the  fact  that  sin  is  disobedience  to  God  and 
transgression  of  his  law.  It  also  declares  that  sin  is  the  supreme 
selfishness  which  the  law  by  its  requirement  of  love  forbids,  and 
which  is  the  essential  character  of  the  transgressor  and  the  seminal 
and  productive  principle  of  all  his  sinful  character  and  acts. 

Thus  the  important  truth  is  emphasized  that  sin  is  not  negative, 
a  mere  absence  of  virtue  or  a  nonconformity  with  law.  It  is  a 
positive  choice  of  self  as  the  object  of  trust  and  service,  a  positive 
selfishness  energizing  in  the  entire  character  and  giving  its  sinful 
character  to  all  actions.  Carlyle  gives  us  this  maxim  :  “  Bad  is 

1  Lord  Bacon  says  :  “  Man,  when  he  was  tempted  before  he  fell,  had 
offered  to  him  this  suggestion,  that  he  should  belike  God.  But  how?  Not 
simply,  but  in  this,  knowing  good  and  evil.  ...  It  was  an  aspiring  desire  to 
attain  that  part  of  moral  knowledge  which  defineth  of  good  and  evil,  whereby 
to  dispute  God’s  commandments  and  not  to  depend  upon  the  revelation  of 
his  will,  with  an  intent  to  give  law  unto  himself,  which  was  the  original 
temptation.”  (Valerius  Terminus  “  Of  the  Interpretation  of  Nature,”  chap.  i. ; 
“  Advancement  of  Learning,”  Bk.  i. ;  Works,  Philadelphia,  1850,  vol.i.  pp.  81, 
82,  162). 

A  prominent  preacher  says  :  “  The  selfish  Christian  is  far  superior  to  the 
benevolent  infidel,  because  the  .Spirit  of  God  is  in  the  Christian.”  This  ex¬ 
emplifies  a  confusion  of  thought  existing  at  this  day.  A  selfish  Christian  is 
as  unreal  and  impossible  as  a  three-cornered  circle. 


202  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


by  its  nature  negative,  and  can  do  nothing ;  whatsoever  enables 
us  to  do  anything  is  by  its  very  nature  good.”  1  This  cannot  be 
accepted.  A  sinful  will  is  a  positive  energy,  productive  of  evil  and 
destructive  of  good.  The  Westminster  Catechism  says  :  “  Sin  is 
any  want  of  conformity  unto,  or  transgression  of,  the  law  of  God.” 
This  can  be  true  only  when  interpreted  as  meaning  that  any  sin¬ 
ful  want  of  conformity  to  the  law  is  itself  voluntary,  positive 
transgression. 

2.  Sin  is  alienation  from  God.  This  also  is  a  characteristic  of 
all  sin.  But  it  is  itself  involved  in  selfishness  or  egoism.  In  the 
order  of  thought,  selfishness  is  primary  and  positive,  the  alienation 
from  God  implied  in  it  is  secondary  and  negative.  Man  must 
have  some  positive  object  of  choice.  He  does  not  renounce  an 
object  for  a  vacuity  or  nonentity.  He  cannot  live  in  a  vacuum, 
either  in  his  physical  or  his  spiritual  and  moral  life.  We  have 
seen  that  a  man’s  will  cannot  consent  to  the  real  principle  of  the 
law  except  in  actually  choosing  God  as  supreme  and  his  neighbor 
as  himself,  as  objects  of  trust  and  service.  So  his  will  cannot 
refuse  consent  to  the  real  principle  of  the  law,  except  in  actually 
choosing  some  other  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service.  This 
other  object,  as  we  have  seen,  is  self.  Therefore  one  cannot 
renounce  God  by  a  mere  act  of  negation,  but  only  in  the  positive 
choice  of  seif  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service. 

Hence  sin  is  properly  represented  as  enmity  against  God,  as 
resisting  God’s  Spirit,  as  fighting  against  God.2  Hence  the  great 
message  of  the  gospel  to  men  :  “  Be  ye  reconciled  to  God.”  The 
choice  of  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  is  in  itself 
disobedience  to  God’s  law,  renunciation  of  his  authority,  setting 
one’s  self  up  in  self-sufficiency  as  independent  of  God,  and  in 
antagonism  to  him.  All  sin  is  thus  in  its  essence  rebellion  against 
God  and  treason  against  his  government.  Had  it  might  corre¬ 
sponding  to  its  disposition,  it  would  dethrone  God  and  reign  in 
his  stead.  And  this  is  the  representation  of  Paul  in  describing 
the  culmination  of  wickedness  in  the  man  of  sin,  the  son  of  perdi¬ 
tion,  already  cited. 

The  theory  is  sometimes  advanced  that  if  God  were  known  as 
he  truly  is,  every  rational  being  would  love,  trust,  and  serve  him. 
This  implies  that  no  man  is  at  heart  sinful,  he  is  only  ignorant.' 

1  Review  of  Boswell’s  Life  of  Johnson,  “  Miscellanies,”  vol.  iii.  p.  130. 

2  Rom.  viii.  7;  Acts  vii.  51. 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIN  203 


What  he  needs  on  his  own  part  is  not  repentance  or  a  change  of 
heart,  but  only  education  and  instruction ;  and  what  he  needs  on 
God’s  part  is  not  redemption  and  forgiveness,  but  further  revela¬ 
tion  of  God.  But  if  sin  is  essentially  the  choice  of  self  as  the 
supreme  object  of  trust  and  service,  then  the  more  clearly  and 
fully  God  is  known  in  his  inexorable  requirement  of  universal 
self-renouncing  love  and  his  inflexible  condemnation  of  all  selfish¬ 
ness,  the  more  will  the  selfish  person  become  aware  of  his  enmity 
against  Cxod.  This  revelation  of  antagonism  and  enmity  against 
God  is  exemplified  in  the  rejection  of  Christ.  God  was  in  Christ 
reconciling  the  world  unto  himself.  Therein  he  was  making  the 
clearest  and  fullest  revelation  of  himself  as  the  God  of  self- 
imparting  and  self-renouncing  love,  and  of  the  universality,  the 
supreme  authority,  and  the  unchangeableness  and  inviolability  of 
the  law  of  self-renouncing  love.  And  therein  was  revealed  also 
the  sin  of  the  world,  as  represented  both  by  Jew  and  Gentile  con¬ 
spiring  to  consign  him  to  the  most  ignominious  death  of  a  crimi¬ 
nal.  Thus,  on  occasion  of  God’s  making  the  fullest  revelation  of 
himself  coming  into  the  world  to  save  it  from  sin,  the  sin  of  the 
world  revealed  itself  in  its  real  and  essential  character  as  enmity 
and  murderous  hate  against  the  Holy  One.  He  on  the  contrary 
met  this  hate  with  the  compassion  and  gracious  power  of  atoning 
and  redeeming  love. 

We  see  why  a  sinner  is  so  commonly  unconscious  of  his  own 
enmity  against  God.  He  says,  I  never  had  a  feeling  of  enmity 
against  God  in  all  my  life.  It  is  because  his  positive  act  in  re¬ 
nouncing  God  is  his  supreme  choice  of  himself ;  to  this  his  atten¬ 
tion  is  directed ;  his  renunciation  of  God  and  antagonism  to  him 
is  hidden  in  some  form  of  self-sufficiency,  self-glorifying,  self-will, 
or  self-seeking.  He  is  thinking  only  of  gratifying  his  own  desires 
and  carrying  out  his  own  plans,  with  no  thought  of  God.  Such 
before  his  conversion  was  Paul’s  unconsciousness  of  the  real  sig¬ 
nificance  of  his  own  sinfulness  :  “  I  was  alive  without  the  law 
once  ;  but  when  the  commandment  came,  sin  revived  and  I 
died.”  1 

Luther  and  Calvin  and  after  them  the  older  Protestant  theolo¬ 
gians  teach  that  unbelief  or  the  lack  of  Christian  faith  is  the  root 
of  all  sin.  This  is  truly  characteristic  of  sin  in  its  deepest  root ; 
for  trust  in  God  is  the  only  beginning  of  right  character  in  men  or 

1  Rom.  vii.  9. 


204  THE  LORD  of  all  in  moral  government 

angels.  But  this  lack  of  faith  is  not  a  mere  negation  or  with¬ 
drawal  of  trust  in  God.  It  is  the  positive  choice  of  self  as  the 
supreme  object  of  trust,  with  the  self-sufficiency  and  pride,  the 
self-righteousness  and  self-exaltation,  the  arrogance,  self-will,  and 
self-seeking  involved  in  it  or  issuing  from  it.  This  excludes  trust  in 
God.  This,  though  in  its  most  refined  form,  was  exemplified  by 
the  Stoics.  Seneca  says  :  “  Give  your  whole  mind  to  philosophy, 
be  absorbed  in  it,  cultivate  it,  and  you  will  far  surpass  all  other 
men  and  be  little  inferior  to  the  gods.”  He  gives  us  the  maxim  : 
“  Admire  only  thyself.”  He  says  :  “  A  wise  man  lives  with  the 
gods  on  an  equality  as  a  companion,  not  as  a  suppliant.”  1 

Theology  has  commonly  declared  a  doctrine  of  total  depravity. 
We  now  see  in  what  sense  it  is  total.  Sin  is  essentially  a  man’s 
choice  of  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service.  In  that 
choice  he  totally  renounces  God  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust 
and  service.  One  who  is  in  rebellion  against  the  government 
may  be  amiable,  upright,  and  trustworthy  in  the  relations  of  private 
life.  But  he  has  totally  alienated  himself  from  the  government 
and  put  himself  into  antagonism  to  it.  So  the  renunciation  of 
God  in  the  supreme  choice  of  self  is  a  complete  renunciation  and 
alienation.  But  it  does  not  destroy  the  person’s  reason,  con¬ 
science,  and  free  will  nor  extinguish  his  constitutional  susceptibili¬ 
ties,  nor  his  natural  affections  and  instinctive  impulses  and  desires. 
He  may  be  amiable,  honest  and  honorable  in  his  dealings  with  his 
friends.  But  he  has  totally  alienated  himself  from  God  and  put 
himself  into  antagonism  to  him.  So  Christ  says  :  “  I  know  you 
that  ye  have  not  the  love  of  God  in  yourselves.” 2 

3.  Sin  has  also  been  represented  as  being  in  its  essence  indi¬ 
viduation. 

Buddhism,  being  a  form  of  pantheism,  teaches  that  individua¬ 
tion  is  the  source  of  all  evil.  But  the  individuation  denotes  the 
existence  of  finite  beings.  Finite  existence  is  evil  in  itself,  and 
the  only  redemption  possible  is  the  extinction  of  the  individual 
conscious  being  and  its  reabsorption  into  the  absolute. 

Christianity  recognizes  individuation  as  characteristic  of  sin  in 
its  essence.  But  it  is  not  individuation  in  the  Buddhist  meaning. 
On  the  contrary,  it  recognizes  a  man  in  his  individual  personality 
as  of  great  dignity  and  worth,  because  he  is  in  the  likeness  of 

1  Ep.  53,  8-1 1 ;  De  Vita  Beata,  viii.  2;  Ep.  52,  31. 

2  John  v.  42. 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIN  205 


God,  capable  of  receiving  divine  influence  and  of  intercourse  with 
God,  and  so  of  continued  development  and  the  progressive  realiza¬ 
tion  of  the  true  good.  According  to  Christianity  the  personal 
individuality  of  a  man  is  not  evil  but  good.  The  sin  is  a  moral 
individuation  in  which  the  person  by  his  own  free  choice  of  self 
as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service,  alienates  and  isolates 
himself  at  once  from  God  and  from  his  fellow-men.  This  selfish¬ 
ness  is  in  its  essential  nature  individuating  and  isolating,  and  puts 
man  into  antagonism  to  the  moral  system  of  which  he  is  a  mem¬ 
ber.  It  is  alienation  from  and  enmity  against  God  and  is  the 
principle  of  discord  and  enmity  between  man  and  man.  So 
James  declares  :  “  Whence  come  wars  and  whence  come  fightings 
among  you  ?  come  they  not  hence,  even  of  your  lusts  that  war  in 
your  members?  Ye  lust  and  have  not;  ye  kill  and  covet,  and 
cannot  obtain ;  ye  fight  and  war.”  Thus  selfishness,  the  essence 
of  sin,  involves  individuation.  It  tends  to  disintegrate  society 
into  Ishmaels,  each  man’s  hand  against  every  man  and  every 
man’s  hand  against  him.  For  the  selfish  man  arrogating  every¬ 
thing  to  himself  finds  everybody  else  in  his  way.  He  must  either 
control  and  use  them,  or  oppose  and  fight  them.  This  is  exem¬ 
plified  by  Polus  in  Plato’s  “  Gorgias,”  who,  being  asked  what  is  the 
true  good,  says  that  the  good  is  the  possession  of  supreme  power 
in  a  state,  like  that  of  tyrants,  who  kill,  despoil,  or  exile  whom 
they  will,  and  do  in  all  things  just  as  they  like.  And  Meno,  in 
the  dialogue  bearing  his  name,  says  that  “  virtue  in  a  man  is  to 
know  how  to  administer  the  state,  in  the  administration  of  which 
he  will  benefit  his  friends  and  damage  his  enemies,  and  will  take 
care  not  to  suffer  damage  himself.”  1  Professor  Royce  asked  a 
graduate,  who  had  been  out  of  college  a  few  years  and  very  suc¬ 
cessful  in  his  business,  what  was  his  view  of  a  good  and  successful 
life.  He  replied  :  “  My  notion  of  a  good  life  is  that  you  ought  to 
help  your  friends  and  whack  your  enemies.”  2  Thus  through  all 
the  ages  from  Plato’s  day  till  now  selfishness  has  revealed  itself  as 
always  the  same,  the  spirit  of  tyranny  and  oppression,  the  princi¬ 
ple  of  alienation,  discord,  and  enmity.  It  is,  in  its  essential  nature, 
a  cannibal  giant  that  will  devour  your  flesh,  crunch  your  bones 
and  suck  their  marrow,  if  so  he  can  promote  his  own  enjoyment 

1  Steph.  466,  469,  71;  Jowett’s  Translation,  vol.  iii.  pp.  51,  55;  vol.  i. 
p.  244. 

2  Religious  Aspect  of  Philosophy,  p.  202. 


20 6  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


or  the  attainment  of  his  own  selfish  ends.  Sophocles  says  that 
arrogance,  lawless  and  reckless  (r/5pt?),  is  the  parent  of  tyranny.1 
This  Greek  word,  of  which  no  English  word  is  the  exact  equiva¬ 
lent,  well  expresses  the  character  of  the  supremely  selfish  person, 
in  the  self-sufficiency  and  pride  of  lawless  and  resistless  power, 
subjecting  men  to  the  insolence  and  arrogance  of  his  own  capri¬ 
cious  will. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  individuation  inherent  in  selfishness 
tends  to  insubordination,  lawlessness,  and  finally  to  anarchy 
among  the  people.  Aristophanes  in  “The  Clouds”  introduces  a 
young  fellow  arguing  himself  free  from  all  restraints  of  filial  duty. 
And  similar  is  the  selfishness  in  every  sphere  of  life.  Self-will  is 
essential  in  it.  Its  maxim  is,  Every  man  for  himself.  In  the 
state  it  is  the  repellent  force  tending  to  overpower  the  attractive 
and  to  disintegrate  society.  It  generates  impatience  under  the 
restraint  of  law,  antagonism  against  all  government,  brawling  day 
and  night  against  all  the  established  institutions,  order,  and  peace 
of  society,  and  ultimately  revolutionary  violence  and  anarchy. 

In  the  Epistle  of  James,  sin  is  characterized  as  “earthly,  sen¬ 
sual,  devilish.”  Selfishness  in  the  form  of  individuation  is  not 
merely  sin  of  the  earthly  and  sensuous  type.  It  is  devilish.  It 
penetrates  into  the  inmost  personal  powers  and  affections  of 
man’s  spirit  and  perverts  them  to  evil.  In  self-sufficiency  and 
pride,  in  insolent  and  arrogant  self-will  and  self-seeking,  in  op¬ 
pression  and  tyranny  when  it  has  the  power,  in  lawlessness,  in 
reckless  and  destructive  violence,  it  is  satanic.2 

A  covert  approval  of  egoism  or  selfishness  with  its  individuat¬ 
ing  and  divisive  tendencies  lurks,  sometimes  without  the  writer’s 
consciousness  of  it,  in  some  of  the  current  teachings  as  to  the 
conduct  of  life.  It  may  be  found,  for  example,  in  Carlyle’s 
exaltation  of  mere  personal  force,  in  the  current  Hellenism,  the 
gospel  of  progress  by  intellectual  and  aesthetic  culture,  in  some 
poetry  and  fiction,  and  in  all  teaching,  popular,  scientific,  philo¬ 
sophical  or  theological,  which  implies  man’s  power  to  realize  the 
highest  possibilities  of  his  being  by  the  mere  force  of  his  own  in¬ 
tellect  and  will  without  faith  in  God.  “  The  tameless  liberty,  the 
divine  dignity  of  the  individual  spirit,  expanding  till  it  admits 

1  CEdipus  Tyrannus,  873. 

2  Plato  in  “  The  Republic  ”  says  that  even  the  dogs  of  Athens  have  a  look 
of  impertinence  not  seen  in  the  dogs  of  Sparta. 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIN  20J 


neither  any  limit  nor  anything  foreign  to  itself,  and  conscious  of 
a  strength  instinct  with  creative  force,  —  such  is  the  point  of  view. 
This  ideal  of  a  liberty  absolute,  indefeasible,  respecting  itself 
above  all,  disdaining  the  visible  and  the  universe,  and  develop¬ 
ing  itself  after  its  own  laws  alone,  is  also  the  ideal  of  Emerson, 
the  Stoic  of  young  America.  According  to  it  man  finds  his  joy 
in  himself  and,  safe  in  the  inaccessible  sanctuary  of  his  personal 
consciousness,  becomes  almost  a  god.”  1  The  same  exaltation 
of  self,  in  its  most  refined  form  in  poetry,  is  exemplified  in  these 
lines  of  Clough  : 

“  Where  are  the  great  whom  thou  wouldst  wish  to  praise  thee  ? 

Where  are  the  pure  whom  thou  wouldst  choose  to  love  thee  ? 

Where  are  the  brave  to  stand  supreme  above  thee, 

Whose  high  commands  would  cheer,  whose  chidings  raise  thee? 

Seek,  seeker,  in  thyself  ;  submit  to  find 

In  the  stones,  bread,  and  life  in  the  blank  mind.” 

4.  Paul  often  calls  the  sinner  the  carnal  or  fleshly  man,  and 
the  natural  man.  The  two  designations  have  essentially  the  same 
meaning,  denoting  a  person  acting  under  the  predominant  im¬ 
pulses  of  his  bodily  appetites  and  feelings  and  his  animal  desires 
and  affections.  Accordingly  Rothe,  Zwingli,  and  others  have 
held  that  sensuality  or  animality  is  the  root  from  which  all  forms 
of  sin  have  originated.  Rothe  attempts  to  show  that  selfishness 
or  egoism  is  originated  from  sensuality.  But  this  is  impossible  ; 
and  in  attempting  to  establish  it  Rothe  has  scarcely  escaped  the 
Gnostic  doctrine  that  matter  is  in  itself  evil  and  the  root  of  all 
sin. 

Sin,  in  the  aspect  in  which  it  is  presented  in  the  carnal  or 
fleshly  and  the  natural  man,  obviously  presupposes  the  renuncia¬ 
tion  of  God  and  his  law  in  selfishness  and  is  derived  from  it. 
Man  has  many  natural  appetites,  desires,  and  affections  common 
to  him  with  brutes.  When  in  supreme  selfishness  he  has  cast  off 
the  restraint  of  God’s  law  and  no  longer  rules  over  his  lower  pro¬ 
pensities  in  accordance  with  it,  he  easily  gives  himself  up  to  these 
natural  impulses  and  seeks  his  enjoyment  in  gratifying  them. 
And,  further,  in  his  selfishness  he  has  alienated  himself  from 
God  and  shut  out  from  his  soul  the  gracious  influences  of  the 
divine  Spirit.  Thus  separated  from  its  legitimate  environment, 
the  higher  spiritual  powers  and  susceptibilities  in  him  are  weak- 

1  Amiel’s  Journal,  Feb.  1,  1852. 


208  the  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


ened  by  lack  of  exercise  and  nourishment,  and  the  lower  appe¬ 
tites,  desires,  and  passions  of  his  nature  prevail.  So  long  as  a 
plant  or  animal  lives,  the  chemical  forces  are  held  in  abeyance, 
but  as  soon  as  life  is  extinct  they  begin  to  decompose  and  corrupt 
the  body ;  so  while  the  spiritual  life  of  love  continues,  the  lower 
impulses  are  held  in  abeyance,  but  when  it  ceases  and  God  is 
shut  out  in  the  supreme  choice  of  self,  the  lower  propensities  and 
passions,  no  longer  under  restraint,  assert  their  power  and  the 
person  is  corrupted  into  the  carnal  or  fleshly  man ;  into  the  natu¬ 
ral  man  in  whom  the  life  of  nature  prevails  over  the  life  of  the 
Spirit.  He  does  not  cease  to  be  a  rational  free  agent,  respon¬ 
sible  for  his  actions.  But  he  is  a  sinful  free  agent,  who  is  giving 
himself  up  to  his  appetites  and  passions  to  be  ruled  by  them. 
Reason  and  conscience  are  unheeded.  The  lower  impulses  of 
his  nature  dominate  over  the  higher  and  spiritual,  and  these 
are  buried  and  smothered  under  them.  By  his  own  free  action 
he  has  submerged  himself  in  sense  and  nature.  Therefore,  he  is 
properly  characterized  as  the  carnal  or  fleshly  man  living  for  the 
gratification  of  appetite,  or  as  the  natural  man  subjecting  himself 
to  the  lower  impulses  of  his  nature  which  ally  him  with  brutes, 
and  disregarding  the  higher  powers  and  susceptibilities  which 
ally  him  with  God.  And  plainly  it  is  his  selfishness  which  is 
manifested  in  his  thus  giving  himself  up  to  a  life  of  self-gratifi¬ 
cation  and  self-indulgence  in  repudiation  of  God’s  law  of  universal 
love. 

Here  we  see  the  significance  of  the  scriptural  representation  of 
sin  as  a  bondage  or  slavery.  A  miser  is  enslaved  by  the  love  of 
money,  which  by  his  desire  of  hoarding  has  lost  to  him  all  its  real 
value  ;  the  covetous  man  is  enslaved  by  his  covetousness,  driving 
him  to  a  life  of  self-denying  toil  which  yet  can  never  satiate  it ; 
a  drunkard  is  enslaved  by  his  appetite,  which  only  debases  and 
ruins  him.  Because  reason,  conscience,  free  will,  all  the  higher 
powers  and  susceptibilities  essential  to  moral  responsibility  sur¬ 
vive  in  the  sinner,  he  is  conscious  of  higher  and  nobler  possibili¬ 
ties  and  obligations.  But  in  every  aspiration  and  endeavor  to 
realize  and  fulfil  them  he  finds  the  lower  propensities  dominant, 
the  law  in  his  members  warring  against  the  law  of  his  mind ;  he 
becomes  conscious  of  impotence  for  good,  of  bondage  and  servi¬ 
tude  to  the  power  of  evil ;  he  feels  himself  to  be  sold  as  a  slave 
under  sin. 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIN  209 


Here  it  is  seen  that  the  divisive  influence  of  selfishness  penetrates 
within  the  personality  of  the  sinner  and  brings  him  into  conflict 
with  himself.  His  reason  and  conscience  are  always  in  conflict 
with  his  appetites,  desires,  and  affections ;  his  will  is  always  in  an¬ 
tagonism  to  his  reason  and  conscience.  And  the  lower  appetites, 
desires,  and  affections  are  not  only  in  conflict  with  the  higher, 
but  also  with  one  another.  Because  the  man  no  longer  com¬ 
mands  and  regulates  them  in  accordance  with  the  principles  and 
laws  of  his  reason  and  conscience,  they  are  like  a  mob  fighting 
among  themselves,  with  no  strong  hand  of  authority  to  control 
them.  And  because  they  have  not  had  the  disciplining  and 
educating  influence  of  a  life  ordered  by  reason  and  conscience, 
some  of  these  natural  propensities  are  overgrown,  distorted  or 
morbid  while  others  are  stupefied.  Thus  the  inward  personality 
of  the  sinner  is  in  disorder,  conflict,  and  confusion. 

It  may  be  objected  that  unity  is  given  to  the  selfish  character 
by  the  fact  that  some  one  appetite,  desire,  or  affection  becomes 
the  ruling  passion  and  brings  all  other  propensities  into  subjec¬ 
tion  to  itself.  It  is  true  that  any  natural  propensity  may  be 
exalted  by  the  sinner  into  a  ruling  passion.  But  the  rule  of 
passion,  supplanting  reason  and  conscience,  is  itself  a  morbid 
condition  of  the  soul  in  which  peace  and  harmony  within  it  are 
impossible.  The  ruling  passion  is  like  a  cancer  which  appropri¬ 
ates  the  nourishment  of  the  body,  transforms  it  into  poison  and 
infuses  it  into  the  whole  system,  disordering  every  organ  and 
function. 

5.  Sin  has  also  been  resolved  into  worldliness,  the  love  of  this 
present  world. 

Here  it  must  be  remembered  that  world  (kosmos)  is  used  in 
the  New  Testament,  especially  by  John,  to  denote  the  kingdom 
of  evil,  the  dominion  of  Satan,  opposed  to  the  kingdom  of  God. 
“The  whole  world  lieth  in  wickedness.”  Out  of  this  kingdom 
and  dominion  of  evil,  men  are  redeemed  by  God  in  Christ  and  by 
his  Spirit,  and  are  translated  into  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  The 
love  of  this  present  world,  the  spirit  of  the  world  which  worketh 
in  the  children  of  disobedience,  is  not  merely  nor  primarily  con¬ 
formity  with  the  fashions  and  seeking  the  amusements  and  pleas¬ 
ures  of  the  world.  It  is  the  spirit  of  egoism  in  its  self-sufficiency 
and  self-glorifying,  its  self-will  and  self-seeking,  as  distinguished 
from  the  spirit  of  self-sacrificing  love  which  trusts  God  in  Christ 
vol.  11.  —  14 


210  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


and  serves  him  in  doing  good  to  men,  and  as  antagonistic  to  the 
Spirit  and  kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  So  Augustine  represents 
it:  “Two  commonwealths  have  been  formed  by  two  loves  :  the 
earthly  by  the  love  of  self  even  to  the  contempt  of  God  ;  the 
heavenly  by  the  love  of  God  even  to  the  contempt  of  self.  The 
former  glories  in  itself,  the  latter  in  the  Lord.  The  one  lifts  up 
its  head  in  its  own  glory ;  the  other  says  to  its  God,  Thou  art  my 
glory.  In  the  one  the  princes  and  nations  it  subdues  are  ruled 
by  the  love  of  ruling  ;  in  the  other  the  princes  and  the  subjects 
serve  one  another  in  love,  the  latter  obeying,  while  the  former 
take  thought  for  all.”  1 

Worldliness,  however,  includes  the  inordinate,  that  is,  the  self¬ 
ish  love  of  money  or  of  any  earthly  good.  Our  Lord  says  : 
“Take  heed  and  beware  of  covetousness.”  Paul  says  that 
covetousness  is  idolatry.  It  is  a  selfish  desire  to  get,  possess,  and 
use  ;  it  is  a  desire  not  for  much,  but  for  more.  It,  therefore,  may 
exist  in  its  full  strength,  whether  a  person  possesses  little  or  much  ; 
and  it  is  in  its  essential  nature  insatiable.  Thus  all  such  desires 
for  earthly  good  are  in  their  essential  nature  manifestations  of 
selfishness.  And  covetousness  is  figuratively  called  idolatry,  be¬ 
cause  it  concentrates  the  energies  on  something  to  be  got,  pos¬ 
sessed,  and  used,  and  through  the  vehemence  of  desire  gives  to 
worldly  things  the  lordship  of  the  soul  which  belongs  to  God 
alone. 

Here  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  natural  and  instinctive 
appetites,  desires,  and  affections,  being  constitutional  and  invol¬ 
untary,  are  not  in  themselves  moral  character.  They  acquire 
moral  character  only  as  modified  by  the  free  action  of  the  will. 
Hence,  it  is  not  evidence  of  selfishness,  that  one  loves  his  own 
family,  friends,  and  country  more  than  those  of  others ;  nor  that 
he  is  interested  in  acquiring  knowledge,  or  in  business,  or  in  the 
acquisition  of  property.  These  become  sinful  only  when  the  per¬ 
son  is  actuated  by  the  supreme  choice  of  self  and  fails  to  regard 
his  obligations  to  God  and  other  persons  in  the  moral  system 
under  the  government  of  God.  Then  the  desire  of  property  or  of 
any  earthly  object  may  be  inflamed  into  the  covetousness  which  is 
idolatry.  The  person  may  be  said  to  idolize  his  child,  his  friend, 
his  estate,  his  learning ;  that  is,  he  gives  to  one  of  these  the  place 
in  his  heart  and  action  which  belongs  to  God  as  supreme  and 
to  his  neighbor  as  himself. 

1  Civitas  Dei,  lib.  xiv.  cap.  28. 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIN 


2  I  I 


Here  the  question  may  arise,  whether  idolatry  in  its  proper 
meaning  as  the  worship  of  false  gods,  can  be  classed  under  selfish¬ 
ness.  The  answer  is,  that  we  are  not  to  say  with  Melanchthon 
that  all  the  virtues  of  the  heathen  are  splendid  vices.1  There  is 
nothing  sinful  in  the  constitutional  religiousness  of  man.  On  the 
contrary,  it  belongs  to  his  highest  capacities  and  powers  as  a 
rational  and  free  personal  being.  If  the  worshiper,  according  to 
the  best  light  attainable  by  him,  reveres,  trusts,  and  serves  the 
divinity,  it  is  possible  that  his  service  may  be  acceptable  to  God. 
The  all-seeing  eye  may  see  in  him  a  character  such  that  if  he 
knew  the  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  to  himself,  he  would 
gladly  accept,  trust,  and  serve  him.  His  worship  becomes  sin 
only  when  in  selfishness  he  neglects  to  attain  the  light  accessible 
to  him  and  to  use  it  aright,  —  when  thus  in  self-sufficiency,  self- 
glorifying,  self-will,  and  self-seeking  he  alienates  himself  from  the 
divinity  as  he  might  know  him.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  Paul  in 
the  first  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans. 

6.  Sin  appears  in  another  aspect,  as  the  denial  of  the  truth 
and  wilful  antagonism  to  it.  In  its  essence  it  involves  falsehood 
and  lies.  The  Stoics  held  that  all  sins  are  equal.  This  cannot 
be  true  if  it  means  that  a  person  is  equally  blameworthy  in  every 
wrong  act  and  in  every  form  of  sinful  character.  But  it  is  true 
in  the  sense  that  all  sinful  character  and  action  are  the  manifesta¬ 
tion  of  selfishness  in  some  form.  And  because  this  is  true,  all  sin 
is  the  denial  of  the  truth  and  wilful  antagonism  to  it. 

For,  in  the  first  place,  supreme  selfishness,  when  judged  by 
reason,  must  be  seen  to  be  an  absurdity.  Its  vindication  to  the 
reason  must  assume,  as  fundamental  truth,  that  the  selfish  person 
is  himself  the  centre  of  the  universe  ;  that  from  him  all  beings 
proceed  and  for  him  they  all  exist ;  that  all  things  are  by  him 
and  for  him  ;  in  one  word,  that  he  himself  is  God.  From  this 
point  of  view  the  New  Testament  reveals  sin,  when  its  essential 
character  is  fully  developed,  as  culminating  in  “  the  lawless  one, 
the  man  of  sin,  the  son  of  perdition,”  “  whose  coming  is  with 
lying  wonders  and  with  all  deceit  of  unrighteousness,”  “  setting 
himself  forth  as  God.”  Our  Lord  says  of  sinners:  “Ye  are  of 
your  father  the  devil,  and  the  lusts  of  your  father  it  is  your  will  to 
do  .  .  .  When  he  speaketh  a  lie  he  speaketh  of  his  own ;  for  he 
is  a  liar  and  the  father  of  it.”  And  Paul  says  of  sinners  that 
1  Loci,  1521  ;  Corpus  Reformatorum,  vol.  xxi.  p.  100. 


212  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


“  they  exchanged  the  truth  of  God  for  a  lie,  and  worshiped  and 
served  the  creature  more  than  the  Creator ;  ”  and  that  they  are 
given  up  at  last  to  the  “  working  of  error,  that  they  should  believe 
a  lie.”  And  he  declares  that  the  issue  must  be  “that  they  all 
might  be  judged  who  believed  not  the  truth,  but  had  pleasure  in 
unrighteousness.”  1  And  reason  shows  that  this  must  be  the  issue 
to  all  who  persist  in  sin.  For  supreme  selfishness  is  in  direct 
contradiction  to  reason  and  conscience  and  to  all  that  is  highest 
in  the  selfish  person  himself  and  in  all  men,  to  the  constitution  of 
the  universe,  and  to  all  principles  and  laws  eternal  in  God  the 
absolute  Reason.  The  sinner’s  plan  to  realize  his  happiness  and 
well-being  in  self-trust  and  self-service  can  be  successful  only  by 
subverting  the  moral  system,  the  constitution  of  the  universe  and 
the  righteous  law  and  government  of  God,  and  frustrating  all  the 
designs  of  his  perfect  love.  It  is  inevitable,  therefore,  that  who¬ 
ever  persists  in  the  life  of  selfishness  must  miss  all  real  good  and 
be  forever  frustrated  and  defeated  in  his  ruling  purpose  and  plan 
of  life. 

As  thus  deluding  man  into  the  attempt  to  realize  an  absurdity 
and  to  exalt  himself  to  be  as  God,  sin  presents  itself  as  worthy  of 
ridicule  and  contempt.  It  is  an  ancient  story  that  Salmoneus, 
king  of  Elis,  required  his  subjects  to  worship  him  as  a  god.  Driv¬ 
ing  his  four-horse  chariot  with  thundering  noise  over  a  bridge  and 
darting  flaming  torches  on  every  side,  he  claimed  that  he  thundered 
and  lightened  like  Jupiter.  For  his  presumption  Jupiter  struck 
him  with  a  thunderbolt  and  cast  him  down  to  punishment  in 
Hades.  There  FEneas  saw  him.  Such  arrogant  self-sufficiency 
and  self-glorifying,  thus  avowed  and  acted  out,  is  seen  to  be 
worthy  of  ridicule  and  contempt ;  unless,  as  an  alternative,  the 
person  is  seen  to  be  a  madman.2  And  this  is  a  sort  of  object- 
lesson  setting  forth  this  peculiar  aspect  of  sin  as  selfishness.  It  is, 
in  its  real  significance,  though  the  sinner  is  not  always  distinctly 
aware  of  it,  an  attempt  on  his  part  to  give  reality  to  an  absurdity 
and  exalt  himself  to  be  as  God.  From  this  point  of  view  the  sin¬ 
ner  is  seen  either  to  be  a  madman,  or  to  be  worthy  of  ridicule  and 
contempt.  Both  of  these  aspects  of  sin  are  recognized  in  the 

1  2  Thess.  ii.  3-12;  John  viii.  44;  Rom.  i.  25. 

2  Demens  !  qui  nimbos  et  non  imitabile  fulmen 

Aere  et  cornipedum  cursu  simularet  equorum. 

JEneid ,  lib.  6,  590. 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  SIN  21 3 


Hebrew  scriptures  :  “  Madness  is  in  their  heart”  ;  “  He  who  sit- 
teth  in  the  heavens  shall  laugh  ;  the  Lord  shall  have  them  in 
derision”  (Eccl.  ix.  3  ;  Psalm  ii.  4). 

There  is  another  way  in  which  sin  as  selfishness  in  its  essence 
involves  falsehood  and  lies.  It  entices  men  with  hopes  which  are 
never  realized,  and  with  promises  which  are  never  fulfilled.  When 
in  self-sufficiency  and  self-will  the  sinner  renounces  God  and  his 
law,  he  thinks  he  is  asserting  and  insuring  his  own  freedom  and 
independence.  But  he  finds  himself  in  bondage  to  his  own  lusts 
and  enslaved  in  the  world  that  lieth  in  wickedness.  In  his  self- 
seeking  he  expects  to  attain  his  highest  happiness  and  good  *  he 
finds  that  he  has  insured  to  himself  the  loss  of  all  true  good.  The 
tempter  promises  him  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory 
of  them.  He  wins  but  an  infinitesimal  fraction  of  what  is  thus 
promised.  And  should  he  win  all,  he  would  find  in  them  only 
such  poor  and  unworthy  pleasure  as  his  own  sensual  appetites  and 
perverted  desires  and  affections  are  capable  of  receiving. 

7.  Sin  is  represented  in  the  Bible  as  spiritual  death.  Sinners 
are  said  to  be  dead  through  their  trespasses  and  sins.  This 
denotes  the  sinner’s  deathlike  insensibility  to  God  and  all  the 
realities  of  his  spiritual  environment,  to  all  his  spiritual  interests, 
relations,  and  obligations.  It  is  like  the  insensibility  of  the  dead 
to  all  the  interests  of  the  living.  It  means  that  the  sinner’s  living 
interest  is  only  in  selfish  action  and  ends.  That  it  has  this  figura¬ 
tive  meaning  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  death  is  predicated  in  a 
similar  way  of  those  who  trust  and  serve  God.  As  the  sinner  is 
said  to  be  dead  to  holiness,  to  God,  and  to  all  the  interests  of  his 
kingdom,  and  alive  to  sin,  so,  conversely,  the  Christian  is  said  to  be 
dead  to  sin  but  alive  to  God.  This  aspect  of  sin  as  spiritual 
death  is  involved  in  the  conception  of  sin  as  supreme  selfishness 
and  the  consequent  total  renunciation  of  God,  and  his  law,  and 
total  alienation  from  him  and  his  kingdom. 

The  necessary  conclusion  is  that  supreme  selfishness  is  the 
seminal  principle  of  sin  in  all  its  aspects  and  the  fundamental  and 
distinctive  character  of  the  sinner  in  all  his  acts. 


CHAPTER  XXII 


LOVE  AS  SELF- RENOUNCING,  SELF-DENYING,  AND  SELF-DEVELOPING 

The  general  subject  under  examination  in  this  and  the  three 
preceding  chapters  is,  The  Requirement  of  God’s  Law.  In  the 
first  of  these  chapters  moral  character  was  defined  psychologically. 
In  the  second  the  essence  of  the  moral  character  required  in  the 
real  principle  of  the  law  was  ascertained,  and  thus  right  character 
was  defined  ethically  and  distinguished  from  erroneous  ethical 
definitions  of  it.  In  the  third  we  ascertained  what  is  the  essence 
of  sin,  the  transgression  of  the  law.  In  further  answer  to  the 
question,  What  is  the  real  principle  of  the  requirement  of  the  law? 
we  are  to  consider,  in  this  chapter,  the  self-renunciation  or  self- 
sacrifice  essential  in  the  love  required  in  the  real  principle  of  the 
law,  the  self-denial  incident  to  it,  and  the  development  and  well¬ 
being  of  the  person  insured  therein. 

Jesus  says  :  “  He  that  findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it ;  and  he  that 
loseth  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it”  (Matth.  x.  39).  This  is 
a  paradox,  that  is  a  proposition  which  at  first  sight  seems  absurd, 
but  when  further  considered  is  found  to  declare  a  truth;  and 
which  thus  brings  to  light  a  truth  which  had  been  hidden  or  over¬ 
looked.  In  this  saying  Jesus  simply  declares  the  actual  paradox 
of  human  life  ;  he  reveals  the  secret  of  its  true  significance  and 
success.  Paul  had  learned  this  secret  and  verified  its  truth  in  his 
own  experience  :  “  What  things  were  gain  to  me,  these  have  I 
counted  loss  for  Christ.  Yea,  verily,  and  I  count  all  things  to  be 
loss  for  the  excellency  of  the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord” 
(Phil.  iii.  7,8).  This  is  the  secret  of  Jesus,  the  paradox  of  human 
life  revealed  by  him :  Man  must  find  by  losing,  must  get  by  giv¬ 
ing,  acquire  by  renunciation,  realize  his  highest  development  by 
sacrifice,  die  to  be  renewed  to  a  higher  life. 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


215 


Faust,  in  his  embittered  contempt  of  life,  as  always  unsatisfying, 
exclaims  :  “  What  good  can  the  world  give  me  ?  Renounce  ! 
renounce  !  This  is  the  eternal  song  which  rings  in  every  one’s 
ears,  which  all  our  life  long  every  hour  is  hoarsely  singing  to  us.” 
And  many  persons,  counting  the  little,  great,  and  greater  troubles 
of  human  life,  have  sunk  into  a  similar  pessimism,  and  ask  despair¬ 
ingly,  Is  life  worth  living?  Yet  they  persist  in  pursuing  pleasures 
which  are  always  illusive,  and  so,  like  Faust,  wager  their  own 
souls  to  Satan  if  he  will  ever  give  them  satisfaction  so  complete 
that  they  shall  say  to  the  passing  moment,  Stay,  thou  art  so  fair. 
Such  pleasure  Satan  has  not  to  give ;  it  is  given  by  Christ  alone. 
This  baleful  view  of  life  arises  from  regarding  only  the  first  aspect 
of  the  paradox  without  penetrating  to  its  real  meaning ;  by  look¬ 
ing  only  at  the  loss,  not  seeing  the  gain,  —  at  the  renunciation, 
not  seeing  the  development,  —  at  the  sacrifice,  not  seeing  the 
new  and  quickened  life. 

It  has  been  often  supposed  that  Christianity  presents  only  this 
doleful  view  of  life  and  emphasizes  and  demands  it.  So  Feuer¬ 
bach  asserts  that  religion  always  implies  the  sacrifice  of  man  to 
God.  And  Hegel,  in  his  younger  days,  referring  to  the  Eleu- 
sinian  mysteries,  declared  in  a  poem  that  the  desecrated  altars 
of  Eleusis  are  being  erected  again  in  their  hearts  by  the  initiated  ; 
and  he  described  this  revolt  against  Christianity  as  a  reclaiming 

for  man  of  the  treasures  he  had  lavished  on  God.  On  the  other 

* 

hand,  the  deniers  of  immortality  reproach  Christianity  that  its 
virtue  is  only  a  selfish  seeking  of  the  rewards  and  blessedness  of 
heaven,  and  is  therefore  of  a  lower  order  than  that  of  the  materi¬ 
alist  who  obeys  his  conscience  with  no  hope  beyond  the  grave. 
It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to  ascertain  what  the  secret  of  Jesus 
is,  —  what  is  the  real  significance  of  the  paradox  of  human  life  as 
he  presents  it. 

I.  The  Self-renunciation  of  Love.  —  To  this  end  it  is  neces¬ 
sary  first  to  define  what  is  the  real  significance  of  the  renunciation 
or  sacrifice  required  by  Christ. 

1.  It  is  the  renunciation  of  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust 
and  service. 

It  is  not  primarily  the  renunciation  of  the  world,  nor  of  wealth, 
nor  of  the  pleasures  of  sense,  nor  of  the  gratification  of  natural 
desires,  nor  of  anything  the  world  can  give.  One  may  renounce 


21 6  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

all  these  in  false  asceticism,  retiring  to  the  desert,  and  not  only 
renouncing  worldly  pleasures  and  treasures,  but  daily  subjecting 
himself  to  self-inflicted  torments  ;  or  he  may  deny  himself  all 
reasonable  comforts  in  niggardly  miserliness ;  and  in  the  former 
case,  as  really  as  in  the  latter,  he  may  be  living  a  life  of  supreme 
selfishness.  That  which  is  the  object  of  Christian  self-renunciation 
is  not  primarily  the  world  and  its  treasures  and  pleasures ;  it  is 
self. 

It  is  not  the  renunciation  of  self  in  the  sense  of  a  total  sacrifice, 
of  the  extinction  of  all  the  constitutional  susceptibilities  and 
powers,  nor  of  the  cessation  of  all  love  for  self  and  all  care  of 
one’s  own  interests.  It  is  simply  the  renunciation  of  self  as  the 
supreme  object  of  trust  and  service.  This  supreme  choice  of  self 
is  selfishness  as  distinguished  from  the  constitutional  love  of  self, 
the  instincts  of  self-preservation  and  self-exertion,  the  constitu¬ 
tional  and  indestructible  desire  of  well-being.  Selfishness  in  its 
essence  is  divisive.  The  selfish  person  isolates  himself  from  God 
and  man,  from  the  whole  moral  system.  He  puts  himself  in  a 
corner  and  reaches  out  to  grasp  and  gather  all  for  himself.  But 
his  little  corner  will  not  hold  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and 
the  glory  of  them.  His  selfish  accumulations  only  imprison  him 
in  the  isolation  of  his  selfishness,  and  overwhelm  and  crush  him. 
Man  seeking  good  selfishly  will  always  be  disappointed  either  of 
what  he  seeks  or  in  what  he  acquires.  The  self-renunciation 
required  by  Christ  is  the  renunciation  of  self  as  the  supreme 
object  of  trust  and  service.  It  is  the  renunciation  of  selfishness. 

2.  This  renunciation  of  self  is  made  by  a  person  in  the  act  of 
choosing  God  as  supreme  and  his  neighbor  as  himself,  as  the 
objects  of  trust  and  service.  An  existing  desire,  affection,  or 
choice  cannot  be  extirpated  by  merely  denying  or  prohibiting  it, 
but  only  by  the  presentation  of  some  other  object  awakening  a 
new  desire,  affection,  or  choice.  Love  of  the  world  cannot  be 
extirpated  by  showing  merely  the  vanity  of  the  world,  nor  the  love 
of  self  by  showing  merely  the  littleness  and  unworthiness  of  self, 
but  only  by  awakening  love  for  some  other  object.  Nature  abhors 
a  vacuum,  and  so  does  the  human  heart.  It  cannot  renounce  an 
object  to  sink  into  vacuity  of  desire,  affection,  and  choice ;  the 
renunciation  is  possible  only  by  awakening  a  new  desire  or  affec¬ 
tion,  or  presenting  a  new  object  of  choice.  We  have  seen  that  a 
person  renounces  God  only  in  choosing  himself  as  the  supreme 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


217 


object  of  trust  and  service.  So  he  can  renounce  self  only  in 
choosing,  as  the  objects  of  trust  and  service,  God  as  supreme  and 
his  neighbor  as  himself.  The  supreme  love  of  self  can  be  extir¬ 
pated  only  by  loving  God  and  our  neighbor. 

“  Love  took  up  the  harp  of  life  and  smote  on  all  its  chords  with  might, 
Smote  the  chord  of  self,  which,  trembling,  passed  in  music  out  of  sight.” 

In  this  self-renunciation  made  in  the  choice  of  God  as  the 
supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  the  person  comes  out  from 
his  isolation,  recognizes  himself  in  his  relations  and  obligations 
to  God,  and  to  all  persons  under  the  government  of  God  in  the 
moral  system  so  far  as  they  are  within  the  reach  of  his  influence. 
His  isolation  ceases  and  he  is  brought  into  union  and  fellowship 
with  God  and  men.  In  this  self-renunciation  in  the  act  of  loving 
God  and  men,  the  love  of  self  does  not  cease  to  act  either  as  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation  and  self-love,  or  as  the  voluntary  de¬ 
termination  of  the  person  to  develop  himself  to  his  highest  perfec¬ 
tion  and  well-being.  It  only  ceases  to  be  dominant  and  supreme. 
When  love  takes  up  the  harp  of  life,  it  smites  all  the  chords.  The 
chord  of  self  continues  to  vibrate,  but  its  sound,  blended  with 
that  of  all  the  chords,  is  lost  in  the  harmony  and  music  of  love. 
In  the  night  each  star  shines  in  its  own  individuality.  When  the 
sun  rises,  the  stars  in  their  individuality  disappear.  But  they  have 
not  ceased  to  exist  as  separate  stars,  nor  ceased  to  shine.  But 
their  light  is  merged  in  the  one  all-pervading  light  of  day.  So 
when  love  to  God  and  man  begins,  love  to  self  does  not  cease ; 
but  it  ceases  to  be  isolated,  and  shines  on  merged  and  lost  to 
sight  in  the  universal  love,  the  love  to  God  with  all  the  heart  and 
to  our  neighbor  as  ourselves. 

It  follows  that  love  to  God  is  the  renunciation  of  self.  These 
are  two  aspects  of  one  and  the  same  act.  The  choice  of  God  is 
the  love  in  its  positive  character  and  action ;  the  renunciation  of 
self  is  the  same  love  considered  negatively  as  rejecting  and 
renouncing  the  former  supreme  object.  In  the  order  of  thought 
the  positive  act  of  choosing  God  is  first  and  the  negative  act  of 
renouncing  self  is  second ;  but  in  the  order  of  time  they  are 
simultaneous. 

3.  The  love  required  in  the  law  is  in  its  essence  a  self- 
renouncing  or  self-sacrificing  love.  This  is  only  the  converse  of 
the  preceding  proposition.  Since  self  is  renounced  in  the  act  of 


218  the  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


choosing  or  loving  God  and  our  neighbor  as  the  supreme  object 
of  trust  and  service,  the  converse  must  be  true  that  the  choice  or 
love  of  God  and  our  neighbor  is  in  its  essence  self-renouncing  or 
self-sacrificing.  All  love  is  a  self-renouncing  and  self-sacrificing 
love.  Without  the  self-renunciation  the  love  would  be  im¬ 
possible. 

And  this  is  an  essential  characteristic  of  God’s  love.  It  cannot, 
indeed,  involve  self-renunciation  or  self-sacrifice  in  the  sense  of 
relinquishing  any  of  his  perfections  or  blessedness.  Neither  is 
man’s  love  self-renouncing  in  this  sense.  But  this  essential  qual¬ 
ity  of  love  appears  in  God  in  the  fact  that  his  action  is  never  a 
getting  and  possessing  for  the  satisfaction  of  any  wants  of  his  own. 
It  is  always  a  forthputting,  imparting,  giving.  He  opens  his 
hand  and  his  creatures  are  filled  with  good.  All  his  action, 
therefore,  is  the  outpouring  and  expression  of  pure,  disinterested 
love.  While  blessed  eternally  in  his  own  fulness,  his  disinterested 
love  moves  him  to  create  the  universe  that  there  may  be  beings 
to  be  the  recipients  of  his  love  and  participators  of  his  fulness. 
Accordingly,  God’s  love,  when  revealed  to  us  in  Christ  as  exercised 
under  human  limitations  and  conditions,  is  a  self-sacrificing  love, 
even  unto  death,  for  sinners.  And  the  essential  likeness  of  God’s 
love  to  the  love  which  he  requires  in  men  is  recognized  in  the 
command,  “  Let  this  mind  be  in  you  which  was  also  in  Christ 
Jesus.”  1  Thus  Christ  brings  God’s  love  to  men  to  save  them 
from  their  sins ;  in  so  doing  he  reveals  what  God’s  love  is,  and 
sets  forth,  as  no  other  revelation  has  done,  the  universality,  the 
supreme  authority,  the  unchangeableness  and  inviolability  of  the 
law  of  self-renouncing  and  self-sacrificing  love.  Christianity  as 
history,  as  doctrine,  and  as  life  is  a  sacrificial  religion,  centring 
on  redemption  through  Christ’s  obedience  to  the  law  of  self- 
sacrificing  love,  to  man’s  obedience  to  the  same. 

All  love,  because  it  is  self-renouncing  and  self-sacrificing,  is 
substitutional  or  vicarious.  It  is  the  expending  of  one’s  own  in 
the  service  of  another.  Whoever  serves  another  in  self-renouncing 
love  takes  the  place  of  the  person  served  and  does  for  him  and 
in  his  stead  what  he  cannot  or  will  not  do  for  himself.  By  sym¬ 
pathy  and  helpfulness  he  identifies  himself  with  the  other,  bears 
his  burdens  and  sorrows  and  makes  his  needs  his  own  ;  he  may 
even  risk  or  sacrifice  his  life  to  save  another.  One  who  tries  to 

1  Phil.  ii.  5-8. 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


219 


reclaim  another  from  vice  or  ungodliness  bears  his  sins  in  a  true 
sense ;  they  are  a  burden  on  his  heart.  A  mother  is  in  anguish 
for  the  sin  of  a  wayward  son,  and  by  the  love  in  which  she  thus 
bears  his  sins  she  at  length  saves  him.  The  stronger  the  love  the 
more  it  bears  as  a  burden  the  sorrows  and  sins  of  the  person  loved 
and  makes  his  case  its  own.  So  Sophocles  says,  it  may  be  without 
having  fathomed  the  deep  significance  of  his  words  :  “  One  soul 
present  to  help  in  sincere  good-will,”  or,  as  we  might  say,  in  the 
strength  of  love,  “  suffices  instead  of  tens  of  thousands  to  atone.”  1 
And  when  God  in  Christ  comes  into  humanity  to  save  men  from 
sin,  and  reveals  his  love  to  them  under  human  conditions  and 
limitations,  it  is  plainly  a  substitutional  or  vicarious  and  a  sacri¬ 
ficial  love.  “  Christ  hath  once  suffered  for  sins,  the  righteous  for 
the  unrighteous,  that  he  might  bring  us  to  God.”  2 3 

We  see,  then,  that  the  love  required  in  God’s  law,  in  its  very 
essence  as  love,  is  self-sacrificing  and  substitutional.  And  every 
one  makes  the  sacrifice  in  accepting  Christ  as  he  is  offered  in  the 
gospel,  and  therein  giving  one’s  self  to  God  in  loving  trust  and 
service.  It  is  the  offering  of  one’s  self  to  God.  So  Paul  exhorts  : 
“  Present  your  bodies  a  living  sacrifice,  holy,  acceptable  to  God, 
which  is  your  reasonable  service.”  And  the  offering  of  the  living 
sacrifice  is  not  of  the  body  only,  but  of  the  spirit  also  with  all  its 
susceptibilities,  powers,  and  resources.  A  person,  in  virtue  of  his 
being  a  rational,  self-determining  spirit  in  the  likeness  of  God  and 
receptive  of  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  can,  as  it  were, 
lay  hold  of,  can  take  up  in  his  hands  and  lift  on  high  before  God, 
and  offer  and  present  to  him,  himself,  his  affections,  desires,  and 
passions,  his  intellect,  his  energy,  his  will,  his  whole  soul.  He  is 
himself  the  offering ;  he  is,  by  the  divine  spirit  in  him,  himself 
the  priest. 

4.  Love  as  essentially  self-renouncing  is  distinguished  from 
desire.  Natural  appetites  and  desires  are  egoistic  and  are  thus 
distinguished  from  natural  affections,  which  are  altruistic.  Natural 
desires  are  for  objects  to  be  got,  possessed,  and  used  ;  desire  “  is 
an  emotion  of  the  soul  which  has  for  its  avowed  or  secret  end, 
possession.” 4  Natural  affections  are  for  persons,  instinctively 

1  Sophocles,  “  CEdipus  Koloneus,”  498,  499. 

2  1  Pet.  iii.  18. 

3  Rom.  xii.  1. 

4  Cousin,  “  The  True,  the  Beautiful  and  the  Good/’  Wight’s  transl.  p.  131- 


220  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


impelling  to  self-denial  in  serving  them  and  imparting  joy  in  the 
service.  These  instinctive  affections,  such  as  parental,  filial,  con¬ 
jugal  love,  compassion,  and  many  others,  are  not  in  themselves 
moral  character.  But  they  are  in  the  nature  of  man,  foreshadow¬ 
ings  and  intimations  of  the  self-renouncing  love  required  in  the 
law,  showing  that  man  was  made  for  conformity  with  its  require¬ 
ment.  The  love  required  in  the  law  is  a  free  choice  of  the  will 
and  is  thus  distinguished  from  the  natural  desires  and  affections 
and  from  all  instinctive  propensities.  It  is  further  distinguished 
from  the  egoistic  impulses  of  appetite  and  desire  by  the  fact  that 
in  its  essential  character  it  involves  self-renunciation  or  self- 
sacrifice.  “  Desire  lays  hold  of  its  object  for  the  use  and  enjoy¬ 
ment  of  self ;  love  takes  of  the  resources  of  self  and  imparts  them 
to  the  person  loved.  Desire  devotes  its  object  to  self ;  love  de¬ 
votes  self  to  the  person  loved.  The  movement  of  desire  is 
like  that  of  a  whirlpool,  circling  abroad  only  to  return  on  itself 
and  suck  everything  into  its  own  vortex ;  and  because  this  is  its 
movement  it  is  always  empty,  always  resistless,  and  always  dan¬ 
gerous  to  whatever  comes  within  its  whirl.  The  movement  of 
love  is  like  that  of  a  fountain  pouring  out  of  its  own  fulness  to 
bless  all  around  it ;  and  because  this  is  its  movement  it  is  always 
full,  always  peaceful,  and  always  beneficent.  Love  enthrones  its 
object  and  makes  self  serve  it;  desire  seizes  its  object  and  makes 
it  serve  self.  Love  admires,  reveres,  trusts,  and  in  its  highest 
form  adores  the  person  loved ;  desire  uses  the  thing  desired. 
We  love  persons  who  may  be  honored,  trusted,  and  served,  but 
cannot  be  owned  and  used ;  we  desire  things  which  may  be 
owned  and  used,  but  cannot  be  honored,  trusted  and  served. 
If  desire,  uncontrolled  by  love,  fixes  on  a  person,  it  makes  the 
person  a  toy,  a  tool,  a  slave,  or  a  victim.”  1  Accordingly  Christ 
teaches,  not  that  the  water  of  life  which  he  gives  is  poured  into 
a  person  like  water  into  a  cistern,  but  that  it  shall  be  a  fountain 
of  living  water  springing  up  within  him  and  flowing  forth  unto 
everlasting  life  (John  iv.  14,  vii.  38). 

It  is  important  to  mark  this  distinction,  because  love  is  very 
commonly  identified  with  desire.  In  popular  language,  men 
speak  of  loving  money,  or  power,  or  strong  drink,  or  revenge, 
meaning  simply  the  desire  of  these  things.  But  in  defining  the 
love  required  in  God’s  law,  which  is  moral  character  in  its  pri- 

1  “  The  Kingdom  of  Christ  on  Earth,”  by  Prof.  Samuel  Harris,  pp.  133,  134. 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


221 


mary  sense,  it  should  be  carefully  distinguished  from  desires. 
Yet  very  often  this  distinction  is  not  recognized.  John  Boyle 
O’Reilly  says,  “  My  experience  makes  me  sure  of  one  truth,  which 
I  do  not  try  to  explain,  —  that  the  sweetest  happiness  we  ever  know 
comes,  not  from  love,  but  from  sacrifice,  from  the  effort  to  make 
others  happy.”  Here  the  good-will  or  benevolence,  which  mani¬ 
fests  itself  in  unselfish  service  to  others,  is  explicitly  contrasted 
with  love  and  excluded  from  it.  And  even  Christian  preachers 
and  theologians  and  writers  on  ethics  often  define  the  love  re¬ 
quired  in  the  law  as  being  essentially  desire.  Professor  Henry  P. 
Tappan  defines  it :  “  That  which  we  love  we  desire  to  have 

present,  to  possess  and  enjoy  it . The  loving  an  object 

and  the  desiring  the  enjoyment  of  it  are  identical.”  Prebendary 
Wordsworth  says  :  “True  love  is  not  benevolence  ;  it  is  a  burn¬ 
ing  fire,  a  passionate  eagerness  to  possess  the  souls  of  those  whom 
it  loves,  a  grasping  after  love  in  return.”  Dr.  Chalmers  says  : 
“  Love  may  be  regarded  in  two  different  conditions.  The  first  is 
when  its  object  is  at  a  distance,  and  then  it  becomes  love  in  a 
state  of  desire.  The.  second  is  when  its  object  is  in  possession, 
and  then  it  becomes  love  in  a  state  of  indulgence.”  President 
Bascom  says  :  “  We  use  the  term  love  as  the  last  stepping-stone 

of  ascent  by  which  to  express  our  feelings  toward  the  things  that 
confer  enjoyment  upon  us,  from  lower  objects  to  the  highest  per¬ 
sons  who  minister  to  our  well-being.”  Our  Lord  taught  that 
greatness  is  for  service,  not  for  being  served ;  and  that  in  his  love 
to  men  he  came,  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister  and 
to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many.  In  direct  contradiction  to 
this,  the  writer  last  quoted  teaches  that  Christian  love  is  our 
feeling  toward  those  who  minister  to  us ;  and  that,  in  this,  love 
to  God  and  man  does  not  differ  from  our  love  to  the  lowest 
thing  which  confers  enjoyment  on  us ;  therefore  not  from  our  ap¬ 
petite  for  food  or  drink.  Thus  he  agrees  with  John  Locke,  who 
declares  that  all  love  is  the  same  in  kind  with  the  love  of  grapes ; 
“  it  is  no  more  but  that  the  taste  of  grapes  delights  him.”  1  These 
definitions  all  agree  in  identifying  love  with  desire  ;  it  is  the  de¬ 
sire  to  have  the  object  of  love  present  to  possess  and  enjoy  it.  It 

1  Prof.  Tappan,  “  Review  of  ‘  Edwards  on  the  Will/  ”  p.  iS  ;  Wordsworth, 
“The  One  Religion,”  p.  192;  Chalmers,  “The  Expulsive  Power  of  a  New 
Affection,”  Sermons,  vol.  ii.  p.  271  ;  Bascom,  “The  Words  of  Christ,”  p. 
73;  Locke,  “  Human  Understanding,”  Bk.  II.  chap.  xx.  sect.  4. 


222  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


is  a  definition  which,  without  the  change  of  a  syllable,  is  equally 
the  definition  of  a  wolfs  love  of  a  lamb,  of  an  epicure’s  appetite* 
a  drunkard’s  thirst,  a  covetous  man’s  greed,  a  miser’s  stinginess, 
a  swindler’s  rapacity,  a  seducer’s  lust.  Socrates,  in  Plato’s 
“  Phaedrus,”  says  of  such  a  lover  :  “There  is  no  real  kindness  in 
his  friendship ;  he  has  an  appetite  and  wants  to  feed  on  you,  as 
wolves  love  lambs.”  So  Mrs.  Browning  represents  a  crafty  and 
ambitious  woman’s  love  : 

“  Her  love’s  a  readjustment  of  self-love, 

No  more  ;  a  need  felt  of  another’s  use 
To  her  advantage  —  as  the  mill  wants  grain, 

The  fire  wants  fuel,  the  wolf  wants  prey. 

And  none  of  these  is  more  unscrupulous 
Than  such  a  charming  woman  when  she  loves. 

She  loves  you,  sir,  with  passion,  to  lunacy; 

She  loves  you  like  her  diamonds  —  almost.” 

Even  Madame  Dudevant,  known  in  her  writings  as  George  Sand, 
says  :  “  There  is  but  one  sole  virtue  in  the  world  —  the  eternal 

sacrifice  of  self.” 

What  an  unworthy  standard  of  Christian  character,  what  an 
influence  for  moral  corruption  in  the  church  of  Christ,  when  the 
teachers  of  Christianity  degrade  that  which  is  the  noblest  possibil¬ 
ity  of  humanity,  the  love  which  is  the  essence  of  God’s  moral  per¬ 
fection,  and  which  is  the  godlike  in  human  character,  into  a  mere 
desire  to  get,  possess,  and  use. 

With  such  teaching,  it  is  not  surprising  that  some  men  who 
think  themselves  good  Christians  are  in  their  business  unscru¬ 
pulous  in  their  dealings,  rapacious  in  their  getting,  indifferent  to 
the  rights  of  their  employees  or  of  their  employers,  unfaithful  to 
trusts,  dishonest,  untruthful  and  corrupt  in  party  politics,  —  that 
the  church  has  not  yet  entirely  cleared  itself  from  those  who 
“  devour  widows’  houses  and  for  a  pretence  make  long  prayers.” 

5.  John  says:  “Love  is  of  God;  and  everyone  who  loveth 
is  begotten  of  God  and  knoweth  God.  He  who  loveth  not  know- 
eth  not  God ;  for  God  is  love.”  In  a  preceding  chapter  it  was 
shown  that  John  in  this  epistle  represents  Christ  as  bringing  into 
humanity  the  divine  light,  love,  and  life  for  the  renovation  of  men. 
Here  he  sets  forth  a  special  significance  of  that  truth,  that  man’s 
love  to  God  and  man  is  in  the  likeness  of  God’s  love,  and  that  in 
the  exercise  of  love  man  attains  his  fullest  knowledge  of  God. 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


223 


Man  in  his  scientific  knowledge  of  the  universe  finds  it  at  every 
point  constituted  in  accordance  with  the  ultimate  and  regulative 
principles  of  his  own  reason.1  Science  is  nothing  but  the  appre¬ 
hension  and  systemization  of  the  realities  of  the  universe  in  the 
forms  of  human  reason.  Scientific  discovery  is  essentially  the 
progressive  discovery  of  the  realities  of  the  universe  existing  and 
acting  in  accordance  with  the  ultimate  principles  and  laws  of 
human  reason.  For  example,  the  mathematics  which  men  spin 
out  of  their  own  minds  are  found  to  be  the  mathematics  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  which  the  universe  is  constituted.  Science  is  pos¬ 
sible  only  as  it  postulates  behind  all  phenomena  and  all  force  a 
mind  with  rationality  like  our  own,  revealing  itself  and  expressing 
its  thought  in  the  universe  in  the  forms  of  space  and  time.  The 
science  which  the  human  mind  is  progressively  reading  in  the 
universe  is  science  eternal  in  the  mind  of  God  which  he  is  pro¬ 
gressively  revealing  in  the  universe.  Therefore  there  is  no  war¬ 
rant  for  the  common  concession  of  theologians  that  the  belief  in 
God  rests  on  no  scientific  foundation.  It  rests  on  a  scientific 
foundation  in  the  same  sense  in  which  the  law  of  gravitation 
rests  on  a  scientific  foundation.  This  law  rests  on  ultimate,  self- 
evident,  universal  principles  of  reason  which  cannot  be  proved 
because  they  are  self-evident ;  and  it  is  held  to  be  true  because 
it  alone  accounts  for  the  observed  facts  and  makes  it  possible  to 
comprehend  them  in  the  unity  of  a  scientific  system.  The 
belief  in  God  rests  on  a  similar  basis  in  ultimate,  self-evident 
principles,  and  is  held  to  be  true  for  precisely  the  same  reason. 
Science  rests  as  really  as  theism  on  self-evident  ultimate  prin¬ 
ciples  which  can  never  be  proved ;  and  theism,  as  really  as  sci¬ 
entific  law,  is  held  to  be  true  because  it  alone  accounts  for  the 
observed  facts  and  makes  it  possible  to  comprehend  them  in  the 
unity  of  a  consistent  scientific  system.  Science,  in  order  to  com¬ 
plete  itself  as  science,  must  say,  from  its  own  point  of  view,  what 
the  Psalmist  says  in  the  worship  of  God  :  “  In  thy  light  we 

shall  see  light.” 

Christ  reveals  the  same  likeness  of  the  human  and  the  divine 
in  moral  and  spiritual  truth.  In  him  “  was  the  true  light,  even 
the  light  which  lighteth  every  man,  coming  into  the  world.”  The 

1  “  Self-Revelation  of  God,”  by  Prof.  Samuel  Harris,  pp.  256-272,  365— 
37  5,  237-241  ;  “  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,”  pp.  82,  143-148,  182-184, 

3*2-3l4,  56o~564- 


224  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


eternal  Reason,  revealing  itself  in  him  under  human  forms  and 
conditions,  is  seen  to  be  the  same  in  the  fundamental  principles 
of  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  as  the  human  reason.  Man  partici¬ 
pates  in  the  light  of  the  divine  Reason.  The  God  in  Christ 
makes  the  fullest  and  most  impressive  revelation  of  the  law  of 
love  in  both  its  aspects  as  righteousness  and  benevolence,  and 
of  its  universal  and  supreme  authority  and  its  unchangeableness 
and  inviolability.  Christ  reveals  to  man  that  his  reason  and 
conscience  attest  the  law  eternal  in  Cod  ;  that  his  sense  of  sin  is 
his  consciousness  of  obligation  and  of  disobedience  to  the  eternal 
law  of  God. 

Christ  also  brings  into  humanity  the  love  of  Cod.  He  reveals 
it  under  human  forms  and  conditions  to  be  essentially  the  same 
with  the  self- renouncing  and  self-sacrificing  love  which  the  law 
requires  of  men,  and  which  Christ  exemplified  even  unto  death. 
In  Christ  man  receives  God’s  love  to  himself  and  experiences  its 
gracious  influences  on  his  heart.  He  responds  to  it  with  love 
like  God’s  love  to  man.  He  may  participate  in  love  the  same 
in  kind  with  God’s  love.  In  both  ways  he  knows  in  his  own 
experience  what  God’s  love  is.  He  who  loveth  knoweth  God. 
In  receiving  God’s  love  and  responding  to  it  with  kindred  love 
he  knows  in  his  own  experience  the  love  which  is  the  essence  of 
God’s  character,  the  highest  moral  perfection  and  glory  of  God. 
In  sympathy  with  God  he  becomes  a  worker  with  him  in  pro¬ 
gressively  accomplishing  the  great  designs  of  his  wisdom  and 
love.  He  who  loveth  not  knoweth  not  God.  He  lives  in  selfish¬ 
ness.  He  has  no  knowledge  in  experience  of  that  love  which 
is  the  essence  of  God’s  character,  no  appreciation  of  its  glory, 
no  sympathetic  participation  in  his  great  work  of  love  redeeming 
man  from  sin.  By  his  intellect  he  may  know  God.  In  the 
deepest  experience  of  heart  and  life  he  knows  him  not.  When 
he  accepts  Christ  as  he  is  offered  in  the  Gospel,  then  he  opens 
his  heart  in  loving  trust  and  the  light  of  God’s  love  shines  within 
him.  Then  “  God,  who  commanded  the  light  to  shine  out 
of  darkness,  hath  shined  in  his  heart,  to  give  the  light  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ”  (2 
Cor.  iv.  6) . 

In  this  divine  light  and  love  Christ  quickens  in  men  the  new 
spiritual  life.  The  spiritual  powers  and  susceptibilities,  before 
perverted  or  torpid,  are  now  awaked  to  right  action.  The 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


225 


Spirit  of  God,  who,  excluded  by  sin,  had  stood  at  the  door  and 
knocked,  now  enters  within  the  soul  and  dwells  in  it  with  quicken¬ 
ing,  illuminating,  and  renovating  power.  Thus  the  normal  spirit¬ 
ual  life  of  man  in  union  with  God  begins.  In  accepting  Christ, 
the  sinner  “  lays  hold  on  the  life  eternal,”  the  spiritual  life  of 
love  and  of  energetic  action  inspired  and  directed  by  it,  which 
is  eternal  in  God,  and  which  begins  in  man  when  he  begins  to 
love,  and  therein  renounces  self.  Thus  he  begins  to  know  some¬ 
thing  of  the  blessedness  of  the  heavenly  glory;  for  “all  that 
life  is  love.”  As  a  child  who  has  spoken  one  word  has  re¬ 
vealed  the  power  to  speak  all  words,  as  the  child  who  has 
read  one  sentence  has  revealed  power  to  master  all  literature,  — 
so  he  who  has  accepted  Christ  in  loving  trust  has  revealed  love 
like  that  of  Christ,  and  therein  has  revealed  capacity  for  all 
the  self-sacrificing  heroism  of  missionaries,  reformers,  confessors 
and  martyrs,  and  for  the  heavenly  glory,  when  we  shall  see 
Christ  as  he  is  and  shall  be  like  him. 

II.  Self-Denial.  —  Specific  acts  of  self-denial  incident  to 
Christian  service  are  to  be  distinguished  from  the  self-renuncia¬ 
tion  essential  in  Christian  love.  This  is  the  distinction  made 
by  Paul :  “  If  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed  the  poor,  and  if 
I  give  my  body  to  be  burned,  and  have  not  love,  it  profiteth  me 
nothing.”  1 

1.  A  specific  act  of  self-denial  is  the  foregoing  of  a  present 
gratification  for  an  ulterior  end,  irrespective  of  the  worthiness 
or  unworthiness  of  the  end  and  of  the  right  or  wrong  character 
of  the  person  seeking  it.  Such  acts  are  not  peculiar  to  the 
Christian  life.  They  are  incidental  to  the  concentration  of  the 
energies  necessary  to  achievement  in  any  line  of  action.  This 
necessity  arises  from  the  limitations  of  man.  He  cannot  do  all 
things.  If  he  is  to  accomplish  anything  he  must  concentrate 
his  thought  and  energy  on  it  and  persist  in  this  concentration. 
This  necessarily  implies  the  withdrawing  of  thought  and  energy 
from  other  lines  of  action  and  the  foregoing  of  other  pleasures 
in  order  to  achieve  success  in  his  chosen  pursuit ;  he  must  hold 
in  and  hold  on.  This  self-denying  concentration  is  essential 
for  success  to  the  mechanic,  the  merchant,  the  scholar,  the 
teacher,  the  statesman,  the  day-laborer,  as  really  as  to  the  Chris- 

1  1  Cor.  chap.  xiii.  3. 


VOL.  11.  — 15 


226  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

tian.  It  is  essential  in  politeness ;  as  when,  at  a  dinner-party,  a 
waiter  spilt  a  bowl  of  gravy  on  the  new  and  costly  dress  of  the 
hostess,  and  she,  with  a  placid  smile,  expressed  the  hope  that 
the  company  would  excuse  her  for  being  helped  first.  It 
is  essential  in  the  enterprises  of  selfishness  and  of  crime. 
A  burglar,  a  counterfeiter,  anarchists,  and  nihilists  in  prosecuting 
their  bloody  plots,  deny  themselves  more  than  an  upright  man 
in  honest  industry.  There  is  as  much  self-denial  in  a  life  of 
supreme  selfishness  as  in  a  life  of  universal  love.  “  Deny  thyself,” 
is  written  over  the  gate  to  success  in  every  enterprise  whether 
of  virtue  or  vice,  of  selfishness  or  love. 

2.  While  self-denial  is  not  a  peculiarity  distinctive  of  the 
Christian  life  of  love,  it  is  essential  both  to  the  development 
of  Christian  character  and  to  the  efficiency  of  Christian  service. 

It  develops  the  power  of  self-concentration  and  self-mastery, 
which  are  essential  to  strength  of  character,  boldness  of  enter¬ 
prise,  and  achievement  in  work.  This  is  the  Roman  virtus ,  — 
the  robust  manhood  which  the  Romans  admired  as  the  essence 
of  virtue.  The  person  who  has  it  is  no  longer  living  a  life  of 
impulse,  following  every  appetite  and  desire  and  catching  the 
passing  pleasures  of  the  day.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  thoroughly 
in  earnest :  he  has  a  plan  to  be  realized,  an  end  to  be  accom¬ 
plished,  a  work  to  be  done,  on  which  he  concentres  all  his 
thought  and  energy,  and  to  which  he  makes  all  things  bend. 
He  has  disciplined  his  powers  to  efficiency  and  trained  them  to 
act  at  his  command.  He  has  possession  and  mastery  of  himself, 
as  an  engineer  of  his  engine,  and  all  his  powers  work  with  pre¬ 
cision  and  energy  as  he  will.  He  has  thus  learned  contempt 
for  self-indulgence,  luxury,  and  ease,  readiness  for  toil,  fearless¬ 
ness  of  danger.  He  does  not  shirk  work,  but  welcomes  it  as 
opportunity  for  achievement. 

While  this  is  not  a  distinctive  peculiarity  of  the  Christian  life 
of  love,  it  is  indispensable  in  it  for  the  development  of  Christian 
character  and  spiritual  power  and  for  efficiency  and  success  in 
Christian  enterprise  and  work. 

Here  two  opposite  tendencies  appear.  One  is  to  accept  the 
Roman  virtus  as  the  whole  of  virtue ;  to  worship  this  self-mastery 
in  itself ;  it  is  the  worship  of  mere  manly  strength  ;  its  god  is 
Thor  with  his  hammer.  Browning  is  a  representative  of  this 
tendency.  “  Weakness,  irresolution,  even  in  committing  a  crime, 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


227 


is  to  him  the  one  unpardonable  sin,  ‘  hateful  to  God  and  to  his 
enemies.’  ....  Only  when  the  end,  though  attainable,  is  not 
attained,  only  when  the  failure  is  owing  to  nothing  but  the  agent’s 
timidity  and  vacillation,  does  Mr.  Browning’s  mercy  give  place  to 
indignation.”  But  mere  strength  of  will  crushing  out  all  con¬ 
flicting  desires  does  not  show  the  moral  character  of  the  person. 
One  may  be  strong  and  self-mastering  in  accomplishing  selfish 
ends  as  really  as  in  the  work  of  Christian  love. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  criticism  is  sometimes  made  of  the 
current  evangelical  as  well  as  of  ritualistic  piety,  that  it  fails  to 
develop  the  Roman  virtu s ,  the  true  and  strong  manliness  and 
womanliness ;  that  it  is  disproportionately  occupied  with  saving 
the  soul  from  hell  and  rejoicing  in  the  hope  of  rest  and  blessed¬ 
ness  in  heaven ;  that  it  manifests  itself  too  exclusively  as  feeling, 
too  little  as  intelligent,  strong  will ;  that  it  is  too  largely  occupied 
with  worship,  too  little  with  work,  removing  ignorance  and  misery, 
resisting  falsehood  and  wickedness,  reforming  abuses,  and  advanc¬ 
ing  the  kingdom  of  God ;  that  in  it  is  too  little  of  the  love  that 
serves  as  distinguished  from  the  love  that  trusts ;  and  that  thus  it 
fails  to  develop  an  earnest,  strong,  complete,  and  harmonious 
Christian  character.  Whether  there  is  much  or  little  truth  in  this 
criticism,  Christianity  demands  men  and  women  of  earnestness 
and  strength,  of  self-concentration  and  self-mastery.  It  demands 
the  old  Roman  virtus  vitalized  and  directed  by  Christian  faith  and 
love.  Such  a  man  was  Paul.  “  What  things  were  gain  to  me, 
these  have  I  counted  loss  for  Christ.”  “  This  one  thing  I  do,  for¬ 
getting  those  things  which  are  behind  and  stretching  forward  to 
the  things  which  are  before,  I  press  toward  the  goal.”  Obstacles 
and  opposition  only  stimulated  him  to  greater  zeal :  “  I  will  tarry 
at  Ephesus ;  for  a  great  door  and  effectual  is  opened  to  me  and 
there  are  many  adversaries.”  1 

It  follows  that  a  Christian  man  or  woman,  strong  in  the  power 
of  foregoing  present  gratifications  for  noble  ulterior  ends,  will  not 
whine  and  whimper  over  discomforts  and  self-denials,  making  all 
around  uncomfortable  with  the  drizzle  of  his  discontent.  Such  a 
complainer  may  do  well  to  remember  the  fine  saying  of  Madame 
Clotilde  de  Vaux,  “  It  is  unworthy  of  a  noble  nature  to  diffuse 
its  own  pain  ”  ;  and  the  stern  words  of  Carlyle,  “  Do  your  work 
and  swallow  its  annoyances  in  silence.  Contrive  to  burn  your 

1  Phil.  iii.  7,  13;  1  Cor.  xvi.  8. 


228  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


own  smoke  ” ;  and  the  words  of  Paul  to  Timothy,  “  Endure 
hardness,  as  a  good  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ”;  and  the  words  of 
the  dying  David  to  Solomon,  “  Be  thou  strong,  and  show  thyself 
a  man.”  For  every  work  in  every  line  of  action  involves  self- 
denial  as  really  as  the  work  of  a  Christian  or  a  Christian  minister. 
The  self-denial  is  a  mere  incident  of  the  self-concentration  nec¬ 
essary  to  achievement.  So  Sir  Walter  Scott  says,  “  There  never 
did  and  never  will  exist  anything  permanently  noble  and  excellent 
in  a  character  which  is  a  stranger  to  the  exercise  of  resolute 
self-denial.” 

3.  The  discipline  and  training  of  a  Christian  to  this  self-mastery 
is  in  the  actual  doing  of  Christian  work  in  the  service  of  God 
and  man.  This  life  is  the  school  in  which  God  is  educating  and 
training  us  to  the  full  development  of  our  powers,  the  achieve¬ 
ment  of  our  best  work,  and  the  realization  of  the  highest  possi¬ 
bilities  of  our  being.  If  we  are  faithful  in  every  duty  to  God 
and  man,  if  we  do,  <c  as  much  as  in  us  is,”  our  Christian  work  in 
saving  men  from  sin  and  transforming  human  society  into  the 
kingdom  of  God,  we  shall  have  all  the  self-denial  necessary  to 
discipline  and  train  us  to  self-mastery  and  spiritual  power.  Asce¬ 
ticism  is  a  word  derived  from  a  Greek  word  meaning  exercise 
and  training  and  referring  to  athletic  exercise.  But  in  our  spiritual 
development  there  is  no  need  of  a  spiritual  gymnasium  into  which 
we  are  to  go  just  for  the  sake  of  exercise.  We  need  not  go  to 
the  monastery  or  the  desert.  We  find  our  exercise  and  training 
in  the  actual  work  of  life.  Christians,  in  this  respect,  are  like 
day-laborers  and  mechanics  who,  working  every  day,  need  no 
gymnastic  practice  for  exercise  and  the  development  of  muscle. 
Kant  says  :  “  All  ethical  gymnastic  (dW^o-is)  consists  solely  in 
subjugating  our  instincts  and  appetites,  in  order  that  we  may 
remain  their  master  in  any  and  all  circumstances  of  moral  peril ; 
an  exercise  and  training  which  renders  the  will  hardy  and  robust, 
and,  by  the  consciousness  of  regained  freedom,  makes  the  heart 
glad.”  1 

We  need  not  bid,  for  cloistered  cell, 

Our  neighbor  and  our  work  farewell. 

If,  on  our  daily  course,  our  mind 
Be  set  to  hallow  all  we  find, 

New  treasures  still  of  countless  price 
God  will  provide  for  sacrifice. 


1  Metaphysik  der  Sitten,  Trans,  p.  297. 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


229 


The  trivial  round,  the  common  task, 

Will  furnish  all  we  ought  to  ask; 

Room  to  deny  ourselves ;  a  road 
To  bring  us  daily  near  to  God. —  Keble. 

“  Much  must  be  done  and  much  must  be  learned  by  children 
for  which  rigid  discipline  and  known  liability  to  punishment  are 
indispensable  as  means.  It  is  ....  a  very  laudable  effort  in 
modern  teaching  to  render  as  much  as  possible  of  what  the 
young  are  required  to  learn,  easy  and  interesting  to  them.  But 
when  this  principle  is  pushed  to  the  length  of  not  requiring  of 
them  anything  but  what  has  been  made  easy  and  interesting,  one 
of  the  chief  objects  of  education  has  been  sacrificed.  I  rejoice 
in  the  decline  of  the  old  brutal  system  of  teaching,  ....  but 
the  new  is  training  up  a  race  of  men  who  will  be  incapable  of 
doing  anything  disagreeable  to  them.”  1  Better  the  severest  dis¬ 
cipline  of  the  Jesuit  training,  than  that  the  young  be  educated 
without  acquiring  the  power  of  self-denial  in  concentration  on 
work  and  the  love  of  it.  And  in  our  Christian  life,  better  the 
self-flagellator’s  scourge  than  effeminate  and  luxurious  weakness 
and  self-indulgence,  refusing  toil,  hardship,  and  self-denial.  We 
do  much  toward  bringing  under  our  bodies  and  keeping  them  in 
subjection  by  keeping  them  in  perfect  health ;  so  that  we  can  do 
our  work  and  almost  forget  that  we  have  any  bodies.  We  may 
do  something  in  the  same  direction  by  keeping  our  bodies  so 
comfortable  with  all  the  modern  conveniences,  that  we  can  do 
our  work  without  thinking  of  them.  But  in  this  case  the  danger 
is  that  the  conveniences  may  get  the  mastery.  It  is  better  to  put 
our  haircloth  on  our  easy-chairs  rather  than  on  our  backs.  But 
if  the  easy-chair  becomes  indispensable  and  stands  in  the  way  of 
duty,  then  it  is  mightier  than  we  and  has  become  our  master. 
Then  it  were  better  the  haircloth  be  again  on  our  backs.  One 
must  respect  the  severest  ascetic  more  than  the  self-indulgent 
weakling. 

Here  also  is  disclosed  an  evil  tendency  in  those  forms  of  com¬ 
munism  and  socialism  which  aim  to  develop  a  constitution  of 
society  in  which  every  person  is  to  be  fed,  clothed,  housed,  and 
provided  for  in  every  way  by  the  community.  It  necessarily 
involves  a  supervision  and  direction  of  the  individual  as  to  his  line 
of  business  and  work,  his  hours  of  work,  his  marriage,  the  training 

1  J.  S.  Mill,  “Autobiography,”  p.  53. 


230  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

of  his  children,  and  all  his  action  and  interest  to  an  extreme  of 
minuteness  unknown  hitherto  in  any  despotism.  Persons  thus 
tended  and  directed  through  their  whole  lives  would  fail  to  attain 
their  normal  development.  They  would  be  overgrown  babies,  and 
mankind  would  degenerate.  The  intellectual  action,  the  knowl¬ 
edge  acquired,  the  forethought,  prudence,  and  carefulness,  the 
putting  forth  of  the  energies  in  work,  involved  in  self-support,  are 
important  factors  in  the  development  of  the  man  and  of  the  woman. 
The  evil  moral  influence  lies  not  in  the  necessary  struggle  for  ex¬ 
istence,  but  in  the  selfishness  which  controls  it.  Love,  regulated 
in  its  exercise  by  wisdom,  in  accordance  with  the  principles,  laws, 
and  ideals  of  reason  eternal  in  God  and  determining  the  consti¬ 
tution  of  the  universe,  cannot  secure  the  true  progress  of  man 
without  bringing  on  every  individual  the  stress  of  obligation  to 
use,  and  the  necessity  of  using  to  the  utmost,  his  own  forethought, 
skill,  and  energy,  in  providing  for  himself  as  really  as  for  his 
neighbor,  and  so  in  developing  himself  to  his  highest  attainable 
perfection  and  well-being.  And  his  service  of  love  to  his  neigh¬ 
bor  will  be  directed  to  quickening,  guiding,  and  helping  him  to 
do  the  same.  Society  will  then  be  developed  on  the  basis  of 
reciprocal  service  and  helpfulness,  respecting  the  rights  and 
developing  the  personality  of  every  individual,  instead  of  losing 
the  individual  in  the  gelatinous  mass  of  society.  The  latter  would 
be  analogous  to  a  process  the  reverse  of  evolution,  and  carrying 
the  universe  back  from  its  glorious  diversity  and  harmoniously 
interacting  energies,  to  the  peaceful  but  motionless  quiet  of  the 
original  homogeneous  nebulosity.  This  principle  controls  God’s 
entire  action  in  the  redemption  and  renovation  of  individuals  and 
the  advancement  of  his  kingdom. 

“  Shall  I  be  carried  to  the  skies 
On  flowery  beds  of  ease, 

While  others  fought  to  win  the  prize 
And  sailed  o’er  bloody  seas  ?  ” 

The  grand  promise,  while  recognizing  fully  the  conflicts,  diffi¬ 
culties,  trials  and  work  of  human  life,  is  :  “  Even  the  youths  shall 
faint  and  be  weary,  and  the  young  men  shall  utterly  fall;  but 
they  who  wait  upon  Jehovah  shall  renew  their  strength  ;  they  shall 
mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles  ;  they  shall  run  and  not  be  weary ; 
they  shall  walk  and  not  faint”  (Isa.  xl.  29-31).  But  they  who 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


231 


avail  themselves  of  the  gracious  divine  aid  find  that  it  comes  in 
the  renewal  of  their  own  strength  to  grander  exertion.  If  they 
fly,  they  must  use  their  own  wings ;  if  they  walk  or  run  they  must 
do  their  own  walking  and  their  own  running  :  however  great  and 
rapid  their  progress,  it  must  always  be  by  the  exertion  of  their 
own  powers.  In  renovating  and  developing  us,  God  does  every¬ 
thing  for  us  ;  nothing  instead  of  us  and  without  our  co-operation. 

4.  The  false  asceticism  which  prescribes  self-inflicted  priva¬ 
tion  and  suffering  not  incidental  to  Christian  duty  and  work,  is 
founded  in  error,  and  is  pernicious  in  its  practical  influence. 

It  is  founded  on  a  failure  to  appreciate  the  full  significance  of 
justification  by  faith.  The  heathen  fitly  made  religion  to  consist 
in  sacrifice  and  penance  to  appease  an  offended  god,  for  they 
had  no  knowledge  of  atonement  through  the  God  in  Christ 
reconciling  the  world  unto  himself. 

The  Christian,  on  the  contrary,  knowing  that  Cod  is  already 
gracious  in  Christ  who  has  offered  the  one  sacrifice  for  sin  for¬ 
ever,  and  that  he  freely  justifies  all  who  accept  his  grace,  knows 
also  that  he  himself  is  no  longer  under  condemnation,  and  has 
nothing  to  do  in  the  way  of  penance  and  sacrifice  to  appease  an 
offended  Cod,  or  to  make  expiation  for  sin.  Therefore,  in  the 
spontaneity,  enthusiasm,  and  joy  of  loving  trust  and  service,  he 
gives  all  his  time  and  strength  to  the  duties  and  work  of  Chris¬ 
tian  love  in  advancing  God’s  kingdom  on  earth  ;  and  he  endures 
every  self-denial  with  thankfulness  and  gladness  of  heart  that  he 
has  opportunity  to  labor,  and  even  to  suffer  for  Christ,  and  in 
saving  men  from  sin. 

False  asceticism,  missing  this  conscious  freedom,  makes  the 
person  concerned  about  saving  his  own  soul  in  the  life  hereafter, 
rather  than  about  doing  good  to  men  in  the  advancement  of 
Christ’s  kingdom  on  earth.  It  aims  to  crush  out  all  natural 
desires  and  affections,  rather  than  to  regulate  them  and  bring 
them  into  harmony  under  the  reign  of  love  to  God  and  man. 
It  cultivates  the  spirit  of  Plotinus,  who  “  was  ashamed  that  he  had 
a  body,  and  would  never  tell  from  what  ancestors  he  sprung  ” ; 
or  of  the  father  of  J.  S.  Mill,  “  who  professed  the  greatest  con¬ 
tempt  for  passionate  emotion  of  all  kinds,  and  for  everything 
which  has  been  said  or  written  in  exaltation  of  them.  ‘The 
intense  ’  was  with  him  a  byword  of  scornful  disapprobation.”  1 

1  Lange,  “  Geschichte  des  Materialismus,”  vol.  i.  p.  146;  Mill’s  “Autobi¬ 
ography,”  p.  49. 


232  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


Hence  this  asceticism  drives  men  to  separate  from  the  world, 
instead  of  living  and  working  in  it  for  its  renovation  ;  to  fear  and 
trembling  on  account  of  sin,  instead  of  rejoicing  in  conscious 
freedom  from  condemnation  and  in  the  blessedness  of  loving 
trust  and  service ;  to  look  on  Christ  as  a  judge  rather  than  as  a 
redeemer;  and  to  regard  suffering  as  in  itself  well  pleasing  to 
God.  Thus  it  is  in  accordance  with  the  gloom  and  terror 
which  overspread  the  church  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  which  still 
looks  down  from  frescoes  in  Florence  and  Rome. 

Hence  arose  such  misrepresentations  of  the  God  in  Christ  and 
of  the  Christian  life  as  these:  —  “  Our  Saviour  sentenced  joy”; 
“  Man  approacheth  so  much  nearer  to  God,  the  farther  he  de- 
parteth  from  all  earthly  comfort”;  “If  thou  couldst  perfectly 
annihilate  thyself  and  empty  thyself  of  all  created  love,  then 
should  I  be  constrained  to  flow  into  thee  with  greater  abundance 
of  grace  ”  ;  “  When  thou  lookest  unto  the  creature,  the  sight  of 
thy  creator  is  withdrawn  from  thee.”  Hence,  also,  the  misap¬ 
prehensions  of  Christians  so  noble  in  character  as  Blaise  Pascal 
and  his  sister  Jacqueline.  “  Whatever  complacency  the  author 
(Pascal)  may  have  felt  in  his  work,  he  was  careful  to  check  it  at 
once,  as  he  did  every  feeling  of  pleasure.  .  .  .  He  wore  an  iron 
girdle  lined  with  iron  points  next  his  naked  flesh,  and  whenever 
there  came  to  him  any  feeling  of  gratification  in  having  assisted 
or  advised  another,  or  when  he  felt  pleasure  in  any  place  where 
he  was,  or  in  any  circumstance  whatever,  he  gave  himself  a  blow 
with  his  elbow  to  redouble  the  violence  of  the  constant  pain  and 
make  him  remember  his  duty.  This  practice  appeared  to  him  so 
useful  that  he  continued  it  through  his  increasing  feebleness,  till 
the  close  of  his  life.  .  .  .  His  great  maxim  was  to  renounce  all 
pleasure  and  superfluity,  and  he  labored  without  ceasing  for  mor¬ 
tification.”  He  had  previously  felt  obliged  to  give  up  his  bril¬ 
liant  scientific  investigations  as  inconsistent  with  the  religious  life. 
His  sister  Jacqueline  had  poetical  gifts,  and  had  been  requested 
by  a  clergyman  to  translate  some  Latin  hymns.  She  wrote  for 
advice  to  the  convent  which  she  had  proposed  to  enter.  The 
reply  was  :  “  It  is  better  for  you  to  hide  your  talents  of  that 
nature  instead  of  making  them  known.  God  will  not  require  an 
account  of  them,  and  they  must  be  buried.  .  .  .  You  ought  to 
hate  your  genius  and  all  other  traits  in  your  character  which  per¬ 
haps  cause  the  world  to  retain  you,  for  where  it  has  sown  it  would 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


233 


fain  gather  the  harvest.”  But  she  at  least  acquired  self-mastery, 
courage,  and  strength.  For  when  it  was  proposed  to  suppress 
the  Port  Royal  institutions,  and  the  inmates  were  required  to  sign 
a  condemnation  of  the  doctrine  of  Jansenius,  an  indefinite  paper 
was  drawn  up  as  a  compromise.  This  the  men  were  generally 
willing  to  sign,  thus  showing  that  their  ascetic  severity  had  not 
trained  them  to  manhood,  but  Jacqueline  refused.  At  that  time 
she  wrote  to  a  friend  :  “  I  know  very  well  that  the  defence  of 
the  truth  is  not  women’s  business.  But  perhaps  when  bishops 
have  the  cowardice  of  women,  women  ought  to  have  the  boldness 
of  bishops.  And  if  it  is  not  for  us  to  defend  the  truth,  we  can  at 
least  suffer  for  it.”  1 

III.  Self- Development  by  Self-Renunciation. — Jesus  says: 
“  He  that  findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it ;  and  he  that  loseth  his  life 
for*  my  sake  shall  find  it.” 2  This  paradox  signifies  that  self- 
renunciation  or  self-sacrifice  is  essential  to  man’s  true  develop¬ 
ment  and  well-being.  Every  finite  person  is  an  individual  in  the 
moral  system  under  the  moral  government  of  God.  He  does 
not  exist  either  for  or  by  himself.  Therefore  love  to  God  with  all 
the  heart  and  to  his  neighbor  as  himself  is  the  normal  motor  and 
directing  force  of  the  man.  When  he  exerts  all  his  energies  in 
this  universal  love,  he  is  in  harmony  with  his  own  constitution, 
with  the  universe  and  with  God,  and  thus  he  must  attain  his 
highest  perfection,  power,  and  well-being.  If  he  concentres  all 
his  energies  on  himself  in  self-trusting  and  self-serving,  this  is  the 
essence  of  all  sin.  In  so  doing  he  acts  in  antagonism  to  the  con¬ 
stitution  and  law  of  his  own  being  and  to  his  whole  environment. 
Therefore  he  cannot  realize  his  own  normal  development  and 
well-being,  but  only  perversion,  corruption,  and  ruin.  And  this  is 
the  legitimate  and  necessary  consequence  of  sin.  This  is  the 
significance  of  our  Saviour’s  paradox,  —  “  the  secret  of  Jesus,”  as 
Matthew  Arnold  calls  it. 

1.  Love  to  God  begins  in  the  act  of  trusting  him.  In  that  act 

1  Mrs.  Weitzel,  “  Sister  and  Saint,  Life  of  Jacqueline  Pascal,”  pp.  278,  280, 
289,  323.  Heinrich  Jung  Stilling,  in  his  Retrospect  of  his  life,  relates  :  “  My 
father  .  .  .  merely  from  the  mystic  principle  of  mortifying  the  flesh,  almost 
daily  whipped  me  with  the  rod.  I  know  for  a  certainty  that  he  frequently 
chastised  me  merely  to  crucify  and  mortify  his  love  for  me.” 

2  Matth.  x.  39. 


234  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


the  man  is  restored  to  his  normal  condition  of  union  with  God. 

It  has  been  shown  that  man’s  spiritual  environment  is  God,  in 
whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being ;  that  man,  both  as  a 
creature  and  as  a  sinner,  is  dependent  on  God  and  can  attain  his  * 
normal  growth  and  development  and  put  forth  his  highest  ener¬ 
gies  in  fruitful  production  only  as  he  is  united  with  God  by  loving 
trust  and  receives  and  appropriates  his  gracious  and  heavenly  in¬ 
fluences.  It  has  also  been  shown  that  by  sin  man  tears  himself 
away  from  God,  wilfully  closes  his  soul  against  the  divine  influence, 
and  thus  alienated  from  God,  his  spiritual  environment,  is  like  a 
branch  torn  from  the  vine  and  withering  till  it  is  fit  only  to  be 
burned.  In  returning  to  God  in  faith  or  loving  trust,  the  sinner 
renounces  self.  He  comes  out  from  his  self-sufficiency  and  self- 
glorifying,  his  self-will  and  self-seeking ;  he  opens  his  soul  to  re¬ 
ceive  the  gracious  and  heavenly  influences  environing  him  ;  he  is 
accepted  by  God  and  thus  reunited  to  him,  like  a  scion  cut  off 
and  grafted  in  again,  living  anew  in  the  life  and  bearing  the  fruit 
of  the  vine.  Then  God  works  in  and  with  him,  developing  him 
to  the  perfection  of  his  being.  Then  in  all  which  he  does  for  the 
advancement  of  Christ’s  kingdom  he  is  working  together  with 
God,  who  inspires  him  with  divine  wisdom,  illuminates  him  with 
divine  light,  inspires  him  with  divine  love,  and  quickens  him  with 
divine  life.  Then  he  has  also  come  into  harmony  with  the  con¬ 
stitution  and  order  of  the  universe,  and,  in  accordance  with  God’s 
special  providence,  all  things  work  together  for  his  good  because 
he  loves  God. 

2.  Self-sacrificing  love  insures  the  person’s  complete  develop¬ 
ment,  because  it  stimulates  all  his  own  powers  to  their  normal 
activity  and  directs  them  to  their  normal  ends. 

It  calls  into  action  the  person’s  own  spiritual  energies  and  sus¬ 
ceptibilities,  those  which  are  highest  and  noblest,  and  directs 
them  to  their  proper  ends ;  and  brings  all  the  lower  powers  and 
impulses  of  his  nature  into  their  normal  and  harmonious  action 
under  the  direction  and  regulation  of  universal  love.  Selfishness, 
it  is  true,  calls  the  powers  into  action  and,  as  mere  powers  of 
intellect  and  will,  may  strengthen  and  develop  them.  But  it  is 
after  all  a  development  of  power  for  evil  ends  and  for  the  moral 
and  spiritual  perversion  and  corruption  of  the  person.  The 
action  of  love,  on  the  contrary,  develops  the  person  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  his  rational  spiritual  constitution  and  to  the  highest 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


235 


moral  and  spiritual  perfection  and  power.  Selfishness  brings  the 
lower  impulses  to  the  front  and  gives  them  leadership,  and  thus 
deadens  and  suppresses  the  nobler  spiritual  impulses  and  elements 
of  character.  Thus  the  person  comes  into  bondage  under  sin, 
his  ruling  passion  is  in  conflict  with  reason  and  conscience ;  the 
appetites  and  passions,  not  controlled  by  their  legitimate  rulers, 
are  in  conflict  with  one  another.  Thus  he  can  never  realize  his 
true  perfection  and  good,  or  his  highest  power.  But  love  calls 
into  action  all  that  is  highest  and  noblest  in  man,  all  in  him  which 
exalts  him  above  impersonal  nature,  allies  him  with  God,  and  forms 
him  into  God’s  likeness. 

Love  also  opens  to  a  man  the  widest  and  grandest  scope  for 
action.  Selfishness  contracts  the  horizon  of  a  person’s  vision  and 
the  sphere  of  his  action  to  the  little  circle  of  his  own  gains.  It 
belittles  the  man  and  it  belittles  the  sphere  of  his  interests,  enter¬ 
prise,  and  enjoyment.  The  whole  range  of  his  activity  and 
interest  is  limited  to  transient  gains  to  satisfy  his  lower  pro¬ 
pensities  in  a  lifetime  which  itself  is  but  a  vapor  which  vanishes 
and  a  leaf  which  fades. 

“  ’Tis  a  vile  life  that,  like  a  garden  pool, 

Lies  stagnant  in  the  round  of  personal  loves, 

That  has  no  ear  save  to  the  tinkling  lute 
Set  to  small  measures  ;  deaf  to  all  the  beats 
Of  that  large  music  rolling  o’er  the  world  ; 

A  miserable,  petty,  low-roofed  life, 

That  knows  the  mighty  orbit  of  the  skies 

Through  nought  save  light  and  dark  in  its  own  cabin.”  2 

Love  also  quickens  all  the  powers  in  their  normal  exercise  to 
the  greatest  intensity  of  action.  When  one  who  loves  God  and 
man  considers  the  grand  realities  of  existence,  the  greatness  of 
his  own  immortal  being  as  a  child  of  God,  the  vastness  of  his  rela¬ 
tions  to  God  and  the  moral  system,  the  glory  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  on  earth,  the  opportunities  of  doing  service  in  advancing  it, 
the  momentous  responsibilities  under  which  he  lives,  the  sublime 
privileges  opened  to  him,  it  must  indeed  drive  him  to  God  to  lay 
hold  of  the  divine  wisdom  and  grace ;  but  it  will  also  inspire  him 
with  courage  and  hope  because  he  is  a  worker  together  with  God, 
and  must  call  forth  all  his  energies  to  their  intensest  action  and 
rouse  him  to  the  most  devoted  and  enthusiastic  earnestness. 

2  George  Eliot,  “  The  Spanish  Gypsy.” 


236  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


Thus  self-sacrificing  love  must  insure  self-development  because 
it  calls  into  harmonious  and  rightly  directed  action  man’s  highest 
powers,  opens  the  grandest  scope  for  their  exercise  and  arouses 
them  to  their  intensest  activity. 

3.  Self-sacrificing  love  insures  the  true  self-mastery  and  the 
real  freedom,  the  joyous  and  enthusiastic  self-devotion  to  a  great 
work,  which  are  essential  to  the  fullest  development  and  the 
greatest  achievements. 

It  is  a  common  impression  that  the  Christian  life  is  gloomy,  a 
painful  doing  of  duty  for  an  ulterior  end ;  that  all  its  joys  are 
stored  away  in  heaven.  This  impression  arises  from  looking  at 
the  Christian  life  from  the  point  of  view  of  selfishness.  A  selfish 
man  cannot  see  any  enjoyment  in  the  life  of  self-sacrificing  love ; 
he  cannot  understand  the  experience  of  Paul,  who,  having  lost  all 
for  Christ,  had  found  that  the  loss  was  gain.  One  cannot  have 
any  enjoyment  in  an  object  or  pursuit  unless  he  has  first  some 
desire,  affection,  or  voluntary  preference  for  it.  To  a  person 
supremely  selfish  the  life  of  love  must  appear  as  essentially  and 
only  self-sacrifice  and  self-denial.  It  must  appear  as  contrary 
to  all  his  aims  and  desires,  bristling  all  over  with  prohibitions, 
and  every  touch  drawing  blood.  It  restrains  him  from  what 
he  would  do,  and  constrains  him  to  what  he  would  not  do. 
He  can  regard  it  only  as  gloomy,  painful,  and  repellent.  Put 
religion  is  not  a  perfunctory  and  reluctant  obedience  to  rules 
for  the  sake  of  escaping  hell.  Its  sacrifice  of  self  is  not  a 
constrained  and  reluctant  sacrifice,  as  sailors  throw  overboard 
a  precious  cargo  to  save  their  lives.  It  is  no  mere  prudence ; 
going  through  the  gymnastics  of  so  much  prayer  and  bible- 
reading  every  day  and  so  many  meetings  every  week ;  getting 
down  nauseous  doses  of  religious  service,  carefully  counting 
the  drops  in  order  not  to  take  more  than  is  necessary  to  avert 
threatened  death.  The  same  misapprehension  appears  in  a  com¬ 
mon  type  of  remark,  that  we  must  not  make  religion  gloomy  by 
forbidding  amusements.  It  implies  that  religion  in  itself  is  gloomy 
and  hard  ;  but  there  is  a  silver  lining  to  the  cloud,  —  one  may  occa¬ 
sionally  dance,  or  play  a  game  of  cards,  or  even  go  to  a  theatre. 
All  such  conceptions  arise  from  looking  at  religion  from  the  point 
of  view  of  selfishness ;  from  which  one  cannot,  as  our  Lord  says, 
even  see  the  kingdom  of  God  in  its  real  character.  The  contrary 
of  this  conception  is  true.  The  self-renunciation  is  but  the  reverse 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


2  37 


or  negative  side  of  love  and  all  its  acts  of  trust  and  service  are 
spontaneous  acts  of  love.  The  new  love  concentres  the  person’s 
interest  and  energies  on  new  objects,  opens  to  him  a  new  world  in 
which  to  expatiate,  is  a  spiritual  birth  to  a  new  and  higher  life,  and 
thus  expels  the  old  and  selfish  love. 

“  As  by  the  light  of  opening  day 
The  stars  are  all  concealed, 

So  earthly  pleasures  fade  away 
When  Jesus  is  revealed. 

“  These  pleasures  now  no  longer  please, 

No  more  delight  afford  ; 

Far  from  my  heart  be  joys  like  these. 

For  I  have  found  my  Lord.” 

And  Christian  love,  as  it  continues  to  rule  the  action,  gradually 
brings  all  the  motive  and  emotional  feelings  to  their  normal  devel¬ 
opment  and  harmony.  At  first  there  will  be  conflict  with  the  evil 
dispositions  and  habits  remaining  over  from  the  sinful  life.  But 
under  the  vitalizing  power  of  the  new  love  the  natural  propensities 
are  not  extirpated,  but  restored  to  their  normal  strength  and 
harmony  under  the  regulation  of  the  higher  powers  and  suscepti¬ 
bilities.  The  very  lowest  become  penetrated  and  uplifted  with 
the  quickening  and  purifying  spiritual  energy,  and  brought  into 
accordance  with  the  command,  “  Whether  ye  eat  or  drink,  or 
whatever  ye  do,  do  all  for  the  glory  of  God.”  In  addition  to  this, 
the  spiritual  motives  and  emotions,  which  had  slumbered  in  tor¬ 
pidity  in  the  life  of  sin,  are  called  into  activity.  With  the  return¬ 
ing  sun  in  the  spring,  the  snow-birds  are  gone,  but  the  birds 
of  summer  return  and  sing  in  all  the  branches  ;  so  when  the  Sun  of 
Righteousness  rises  on  the  soul,  new  and  heavenly  aspirations, 
hopes  and  joys,  sing  within  it  on  every  spray. 

Thus  the  self-sacrifice  of  love  is  not  a  toilsome  and  weary  doing 
of  painful  duty.  It  is  a  life  of  earnestness  and  enthusiasm,  calling 
forth  all  the  energies  in  joyous  and  intense  action  in  reference  to 
the  new  realities  and  new  interests  opened  to  the  view,  now  that 
the  soul  sees  the  invisible  and  looks  on  the  things  which  are  not 
seen. 

And  it  is  only  in  '  self-sacrificing  love  that  the  highest  self- 
mastery  and  power  are  attained.  The  Roman  virtus  is  only  a 
preparatory  stage  in  acquiring  self-mastery.  It  can  hold  a  person 
to  his  work  in  spite  of  its  repulsiveness  and  his  strongest  desires 


238  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


to  the  contrary.  But  more  than  this  is  necessary.  Complete 
self-mastery  and  the  greatest  power  of  achievement  are  attained 
only  when  in  the  right  supreme  choice  love  has  vitalized  and  in¬ 
spired  all  the  energies  and  concentrated  them  on  its  object,  has 
opened  all  the  spiritual  susceptibilities  to  receive  the  divine  influ¬ 
ences,  has  aroused  all  the  spiritual  motives,  and  emotions,  brought 
all  natural  desires  into  harmony  with  itself,  and  thus  has  attained 
spontaneity,  earnestness,  enthusiasm,  and  real  freedom  in  Christian 
trust  and  service.  Christ  has  brought  into  the  world  a  new  motive, 
the  mightiest  of  all :  “  for  my  sake.”  In  view  of  Christ’s  sacrifice 
of  himself  for  us  and  the  love  of  God’s  own  heart  to  men  revealed 
in  it,  his  name  inspires  to  heroism  of  self-sacrificing  service. 
And  “  in  his  name  ”  the  self-sacrificing  service  becomes,  not 
merely  an  occasional  heroism,  but  the  habitual  spirit  and  action 
of  a  Christian. 

In  common  language,  labor  and  toil,  as  implying  struggle, 
fatigue,  weariness,  are  distinguished  from  work,  which  is  unob¬ 
structed  and  achieving.  A  ship  labors  in  the  sea  ;  the  machinery 
works  smoothly.  Work,  as  exertion  for  an  ulterior  end,  is 
distinguished  from  play,  which  is  the  exertion  of  our  faculties, 
physical  or  mental,  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  the  exercise.  Chris¬ 
tian  love  does  not  suppress  the  play-impulse,  any  more  than  other 
useful  natural  propensities ;  it  only  regulates  it.  It  generates  a 
life  of  earnestness  instead  of  a  life  of  impulse  and  frivolity.  Play, 
as  recreating,  is  necessary  through  life  in  every  line  of  action  and 
for  persons  of  whatever  character.  Where  there  are  the  earnest¬ 
ness  and  self-devotion  of  the  life  of  love,  there  will  be  no  danger 
of  spending  too  much  time  in  play.  But  self-sacrificing  love  in 
its  spontaneity,  enthusiasm,  and  freedom  takes  from  Christian  work 
the  sense  of  laboriousness,  toilsomeness  and  weariness,  and  gives 
instead  the  springiness  and  joyousness  of  a  child  at  play.  Labor 
ipse  voluptas . 

In  this  way  even  acts  of  self-denial  become  easy  to  a  Christian. 
The  more  complete  his  self-renunciation,  the  less  is  he  aware  of 
self-denial.  The  foregoing  of  a  present  gratification  for  an  ulte¬ 
rior  end  is  not  pleasant  in  itself.  But  one  can  rejoice  in  the  self- 
denial  as  expressing  love  and  as  necessary  to  the  ends  of  an 
earnest  life.  Love  to  a  person  or  enthusiasm  for  a  cause  makes 
it  easy  to  endure  self-denial  for  the  welfare  of  the  person  or  for 
the  success  of  the  cause.  In  fact  one  ceases  to  be  aware  that  it  is 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


239 


a  self-denial.  A  man  intent  on  his  business  denies  himself  every 
day ;  yet  he  is  conscious  of  doing  only  what  he  is  intensely  inter¬ 
ested  in  and  wishes  above  all  things  else  to  do.  Tell  him  he  is 
working  too  hard,  that  he  is  injuring  his  health,  that  he  must  go 
away  for  recreation  ;  he  cannot  bring  himself  to  consent  to  it.  In 
any  line  of  action  in  which  a  person  becomes  intensely  interested, 
he  may  risk  and  even  sacrifice  health  or  life,  and  yet  not  be  aware  of 
any  self-denial.  It  is  the  same  in  the  work  of  a  Christian.  Enthu¬ 
siasm  for  Christ  and  his  kingdom  makes  sacrifices  easy.  He  is 
not  conscious  of  the  sacrifice,  but  only  of  doing  what  his  whole 
heart  is  set  on  doing.  The  more  complete  his  self-renunciation, 
the  less  is  he  aware  of  self-denial.  Thus  his  left  hand  does  not 
know  what  his  right  hand  doeth.  Not  merely  does  he  not  do  his 
good  deeds  to  be  seen  of  men,  but  he  keeps  them  secret  from 
himself.  He  is  so  earnest  in  Christian  love,  so  enthusiastic  in 
Christian  enterprise,  that  he  does  great  deeds  of  self-denial  with¬ 
out  thinking  of  the  self-denial  and  without  looking  back  afterwards 
to  praise  himself  for  it.  So  Paul  says  :  “  I  hold  not  my  life  of 
any  account,  as  dear  unto  myself,  so  that  I  may  accomplish  my 
course  and  the  ministry  which  I  received  from  the  Lord  Jesus,  to 
testify  the  gospel  of  the  grace  of  God.”  It  is  an  ordinary  occur¬ 
rence  in  the  many  persecutions  of  Christians  that  martyrs,  old  and 
young,  men  and  women,  have  rejoiced  at  the  stake  in  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  victory  rather  than  of  defeat.  The  Epistles  of  the 
New  Testament,  sometimes  written  from  prison  or  in  the  face  of 
impending  bloody  death,  and  always  amid  hardship  and  persecu¬ 
tion,  are  the  most  joyous  writings  in  all  literature.  In  reading 
Paul’s  words  of  triumph,  “  I  am  now  ready  to  be  offered,”  1  one 
would  never  imagine  that  the  chain  clanked  while  the  pen  wrote. 
The  tranquil  and  lofty  peace  of  the  early  Christians  in  the  times 
of  persecution  is  a  deeper  and  nobler  joy  than  the  gaiety  of  the 
Greeks  and  the  voluptuousness  and  luxury  of  the  Romans  at  the 
same  time.  We  sing  : 

“  Great  God,  how  infinite  art  thou  ; 

What  worthless  worms  are  we.” 

The  Psalmist  exclaims,  “ I  am  a  worm,  and  no  man”  (xxii.  6). 
These  may  express  the  feeling  of  a  person  when  in  the  vivid  con¬ 
ception  of  God’s  infinite  greatness  and  love  he  sees  his  own  sin 


1  2  Tim.  iv.  6-8, 


240  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


and  unworthiness.  But  it  is  the  negative  aspect  of  self-renuncia¬ 
tion.  In  the  thought  of  the  greatness  and  love  of  God,  the  Chris¬ 
tian’s  positive  experience  is  the  consciousness  of  greatness  rather 
than  of  littleness,  of  nobility  rather  than  of  contemptibleness.  It 
is  the  consciousness  that  he,  as  spirit,  is  in  the  likeness  of  God ; 
that  he  is  in  communion  and  union  with  God ;  that  he  is  a 
worker  with  God  in  love  to  secure  all  that  is  noblest,  purest,  and 
best  for  individuals  and  for  mankind  in  advancing  the  kingdom 
of  God.  It  is  the  inspiration  of  love,  the  same  in  kind  with  God’s 
love  revealed  in  Christ,  quickening  the  Christian  to  attempt  great 
things  and  to  expect  great  things  in  the  service  of  God  and  man. 
It  is  the  Christian’s  consciousness  that  he  is  a  child  of  God, 
therefore  an  heir  of  God,  a  joint  heir  with  Christ  to  an  inheritance 
incorruptible  and  undefiled,  and  that  fadeth  not  away  (Rom.  viii. 
1 6,  17;  1  Pet.  i.  4).  Thus  through  the  revelations  of  God  in 
Christ,  the  Christian  transcends  and  leaves  behind  the  “  worm  of 
the  dust  ”  conception,  which  has  often  darkened,  enfeebled  and 
misrepresented  the  Christian  life. 

4.  Self-development  by  self-sacrifice  accords  with  the  Chris¬ 
tian  law  of  service  as  declared  by  Christ. 

Salome,  the  wife  of  Zebedee,  came  to  Jesus  with  her  two  sons, 
James  and  John,  and  asked  for  them  the  highest  place  in  his 
kingdom.  Jesus  in  reply  announced  as  a  law  of  his  kingdom, 
the  Christian  law  of  service  :  “  Whosoever  will  be  great  among 
you,  let  him  be  your  minister ;  and  whosoever  will  be  chief 
among  you,  let  him  be  your  servant.”  And  he  enforced  it  by 
his  own  example  :  “  The  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered 
unto,  but  to  minister  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many.”  1 
This  he  contrasts  with  the  usage  of  heathendom,  that  the  great 
use  their  superior  power  to  compel  service  to  themselves.  Thus 
he  distinctly  presents  this  Christian  law  of  service  as  the  princi¬ 
ple  of  a  new  civilization.  This  ambitious  desire  for  precedence 
in  his  kingdom  appeared  repeatedly  among  the  disciples  and  was 
as  often  rebuked.  Once  he  gave  them  an  object  lesson  by  set¬ 
ting  a  little  child  in  the  midst  of  them,  and  said  :  “  Whosoever 
shall  humble  himself  as  this  little  child,  the  same  is  the  greatest 
in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.”  2  Luke  relates  that  this  contention 
arose  again  at  the  table  when  Jesus  instituted  the  Lord’s  Supper. 
This  was  doubtless  the  occasion  on  which,  as  we  learn  from  John, 

1  Matth.  xx.  20-28.  2  Matth.  xviii.  1-5. 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


241 


Jesus  at  this  supper  washed  his  disciples'  feet.  It  was  another 
object-lesson  given  under  these  most  impressive  circumstances 
to  teach  them  the  Christian  law  of  service.  He  impressed  it  on 
them  by  saying,  as  Luke  relates,  “  Whether  is  greater,  he  that 
sitteth  at  meat  or  he  that  serveth?  but  I  am  among  you  as  one 
that  serveth.”  And  he  added,  as  John  relates,  “Ye  call  me 
Master,  and  Lord ;  and  ye  say  well,  for  so  I  am.  If  I  then, 
the  Lord  and  the  Master,  have  washed  your  feet,  ye  also  ought  to 
wash  one  another’s  feet.”  Even  after  Christ’s  resurrection,  and 
just  before  his  ascension  the  disciples  asked  him,  “  Dost  thou  at 
this  time  restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel?”  Thus  they  showed 
that  even  then  they  had  not  wholly  rid  themselves  of  the  rabbi¬ 
nical  error  that  the  Messiah  would  establish  a  political  kingdom 
in  which  the  Jewish  nation  should  rule  the  world.  Jesus  in  reply 
commanded  them  to  wait  at  Jerusalem  for  the  descent  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  whom  he  had  promised,  to  lead  them  into  all  the 
truth  respecting  himself.  Thus  he  renewed  to  them  his  often 
repeated  instruction  that  his  kingdom  was  not  to  be  of  this 
world,  but  to  be  a  reign  of  love  under  the  illumination  and  quick¬ 
ening  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

This  law  of  service  has  two  aspects  :  Greatness  for  service ; 
greatness  by  service. 

Greatness  for  service  :  —  Whatever  superiority  a  Christian  has 
over  others  in  wealth,  knowledge,  intellectual  power,  or  means  of 
influence  of  any  kind,  he  is  under  obligation  to  use  it  in  the  ser¬ 
vice  of  God  and  man.  The  greater  a  man’s  power,  the  greater 
the  service  he  is  bound  to  render. 

Greatness  by  service  :  —  Service  to  others,  deemed  a  mark  of 
inferiority  in  heathen  civilization,  is  to  constitute  real  greatness 
in  the  kingdom  of  Christ;  greatness  by  serving,  not  by  being 
served.  This  is  the  legitimate  unfolding  and  practical  appli¬ 
cation  of  the  paradox  of  Jesus  :  “  He  who  loseth  his  life  for 
my  sake  shall  find  it.”  Self-development  is  by  self-sacrifice. 

Greatness  is  by  service  in  the  sense  that  by  it  the  person  serv¬ 
ing  develops  himself  to  his  highest  perfection  and  his  true  man¬ 
hood.  The  character  expressed  and  developed  in  loving  service 
is  the  highest  and  noblest  type  of  character.  Jesus  reveals  the 
divine  in  the  human,  and  the  human  in  its  ideal  perfection. 
That  ideal  is  found  in  his  life  of  service ;  he  came  not  to  be 

1  Luke  xxii.  24-27;  John  xiii.  1— 1 5 ;  Acts  i.  1-8. 

VOL.  11  —  16 


242  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


ministered  unto,  but  to  minister.  This  Man  of  Sorrows,  in  the 
form  of  a  servant,  is  the  perfect  man,  in  whom  humanity,  long 
smitten  with  spiritual  death  and  producing  only  degenerate  be¬ 
ings,  at  last,  touched  by  the  divine,  comes  forth  in  full  perfection. 
The  first  tempter  promised:  “Ye  shall  be  as  gods;”  and  the 
promise  was  to  be  realized  through  self-will  and  self-indulgence  : 
“She  took  and  did  eat.”  It  has  been  the  mistake  of  the  world 
from  that  day  until  now  to  expect  to  become  as  gods  by  getting 
and  being  ministered  unto.  The  gospel  also  gives  the  promise  : 
“Ye  shall  be  partakers  of  the  divine  nature  ;  ”  but  it  is  by  being, 
like  Christ,  a  servant.  The  conception  of  the  highest  blessed¬ 
ness  by  being  ministered  unto  is  the  conception  of  an  everlasting 
babyhood,  an  everlasting  need  and  enjoyment  of  the  pap-spoon. 
The  conception  of  greatness  by  ministering  is  the  conception  of 
manly  strength  and  power  to  serve,  of  resources  to  give  without 
impoverishment.  So  we  accept  the  words  of  Jesus,  seeing  therein 
our  highest  greatness,  power,  and  dignity  :  “  It  is  enough  for  the 
disciple  that  he  be  as  his  Lord.”  Contrast  Paul  and  Napoleon 
—  both  conquerors ;  the  one  by  force,  the  other  by  truth  and 
love  ;  the  one  for  self-aggrandizement,  the  other  for  the  welfare 
of  man.  Contrast  them  in  the  imprisonment  in  which  their 
lives  were  ended,  when,  isolated  from  all  factitious  support  and 
splendor,  you  see  the  men  themselves;  Napoleon,  though  sur¬ 
rounded  with  the  comforts  and  even  the  luxuries  of  life,  queru¬ 
lous,  morose,  not  self-poised  and  self-sustained ;  weak,  like  a 
rank  vine  grovelling  on  the  ground  when  its  prop  is  gone  ;  Paul, 
imprisoned  and  chained  in  a  dungeon,  yet  how  grand  his  bearing, 
how  self-poised  and  self-sustained,  how  peaceful  and  triumphant. 

Greatness  is  by  service  also  in  the  sense  that  by  it  a  person 
achieves  the  greatest  results,  develops  his  highest  power  and  ex¬ 
erts  the  greatest  and  most  enduring  influence  among  men.  Pie 
who  by  great  service  makes  himself  indispensable  in  a  commu¬ 
nity  acquires  weight  and  influence  in  the  community.  In  the 
line  of  that  service  he  becomes  a  director  and  commander,  a 
king  of  men  by  divine  right.  He  who  on  a  larger  scale  renders 
a  great  service  to  a  nation  or  to  mankind,  perpetuates  his  influ¬ 
ence,  and  is  remembered  with  gratitude  and  honor  by  succeeding 
generations.  “  If  Paul  had  remained  a  Pharisee,  he  would  have 
been  a  prominent  man  of  his  city,  and  at  his  death  would  have 
been  forgotten.  But  Paul  the  Christian  becomes  a  man  of  power 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


243 


throughout  the  Roman  empire  and  perpetuates  his  influence 
through  all  ages.  If  Luther  had  remained  a  monk,  he  would 
have  been  a  student  inclined  to  despondency  and  having  no 
higher  aim  than  to  keep  his  own  conscience  at  peace.  But 
Luther  in  active  self-renouncing  service,  is  a  man  of  burning 
enthusiasm,  dauntless  courage,  heroic  enterprise,  and  broad, 
hearty  humor,  the  Reformer  of  the  church.  .  .  .  It  is  a  condition 
of  abiding  influence  that  the  life  be  identified  with  truth,  which 
lives  forever.  The  life  expended  on  selfish  ends  is  transient  as 
the  objects  it  seeks  and  narrow  in  its  scope  as  the  interests  of 
self.”  1  As  God  loses  nothing  of  his  perfection,  blessedness,  and 
glory  in  the  exercise  of  love,  always  going  out  and  going  down 
to  bless  those  infinitely  beneath,  so  the  Christian  loses  nothing 
of  perfection,  power,  or  glory  by  renouncing  and  sacrificing  self 
in  the  service  of  love. 

It  is  true,  a  person  in  advance  of  his  age  may  try  to  effect  a 
reform  of  belief  and  practice,  of  laws  and  institutions,  for  which 
his  generation  is  not  prepared.  He  may  be  persecuted  and 
killed.  The  prophets  to  the  people  of  any  generation  are  com¬ 
monly  stoned  by  them.  But  their  martyr-death  is  the  seal  of 
their  unshaken  fidelity,  the  insurance  of  their  glorious  transfor¬ 
mation  into  the  likeness  of  the  glorified  Christ  and  of  their 
eternal  blessedness  with  him.  And  their  martyr-testimony  is 
heard  through  all  generations  and  is  a  mighty  ministration  of 
the  word  of  life  from  age  to  age.  Even  children  who  have  suf¬ 
fered  martyrdom  have  been  powerful  preachers  of  the  gospel  to 
all  ages  and  all  peoples.2 

There  is  even  in  the  physical  system  a  certain  analogy  to  this 
law  of  service.  Every  force  expended  is  at  the  same  time  con¬ 
served  in  new  relations  and  doing  new  work.  The  sunshine 
which  expended  itself  ages  ago  reappears  to-day  in  the  burn¬ 
ing  coal,  warming  our  dwellings  and  driving  our  machinery. 
The  grain  of  wheat  which  dies  in  the  ground  reappears,  first  the 

1  “The  Kingdom  of  Christ  on  Earth,”  by  Samuel  Harris  (Andover,  W. 
F.  Draper),  pp.  159,  160,  161.  See  Lecture  viii.  in  that  volume  for  a  more 
full  exposition  of  the  Christian  Law  of  Service. 

2  “  Salvete,  flores  martyrum, 

Quos  lucis  ipso  in  limine 
Christi  insecutor  sustulit, 

Ceu  turbo  nascentes  rosas.” 

Prudentius,  De  Sanctis  Innocentibus. — 


244  THE  LORD  of  all  in  moral  government 


blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear.  The  little 
acorn  which  buries  itself  and  dies,  reappears  in  the  majestic  oak 
of  after  years.  So  in  domestic  life,  a  mother  expends  her  life- 
force  on  her  children ;  it  reappears  multiplied  in  the  well-being, 
character,  and  influence  of  trained  and  educated  men  and  women. 
And  in  the  spiritual  life  a  person  dies  to  self,  like  the  dying  seed, 
and  rises  in  a  new  life  beautiful  and  fruit-bearing,  “  like  a  tree 
planted  by  the  streams  of  water.”  Every  expenditure  of  physi¬ 
cal,  intellectual,  and  moral  force  in  spiritual  love  reappears  in 
the  person’s  own  spiritual  growth  and  productiveness,  and  is  per¬ 
petuated  and  multiplied  in  its  influence  on  others. 

Till  this  truth  thou  knowest, 

“  Die  to  live  again,” 

Stranger-like  thou  goest 

In  a  world  of  pain.  —  Goethe.1 

5.  From  every  act  of  loving  service  good  accrues  to  the  doer 
immediately  in  this  present  life,  and  evil  from  every  act  of  self¬ 
ishness.  Every  expenditure  of  money,  energy,  or  comfort  in 
any  act  of  loving  service  is  followed  by  a  further  development  of 
right  character,  spiritual  power,  and  true  well-being.  And  this 
gain  is  immediate  because  it  is  wrought  within  the  soul  by  the 
very  act  of  service.  And  vitiation  of  character,  enfeeblement  of 
the  power  for  good,  disorder,  and  corruption  follow  immediately 
every  act  of  sinful  service  of  self.  Moreover,  love  in  its  very 
exercise  is  pleasant  and  satisfying ;  while  sinful  desire,  prompt¬ 
ing  to  get,  possess,  and  use  only  for  self,  is,  both  in  its  exercise 
and  in  its  attainment  of  its  object,  restless  and  unsatisfying.  In 
its  essence  it  is  an  uneasiness  in  the  sense  of  want ;  and  as  a 
stimulus  to  action  it  grows  stronger  by  its  own  activity  and  is 
thus  insatiable.  It  is  the  vulture  in  the  myth  of  Prometheus, 
daily  gnawing  the  ever-growing  heart. 

This  answers  the  common  objection  against  the  belief  that  God 
is  love,  that  the  goods  of  life  are  so  unequally  distributed ;  that 
the  wicked  are  prospered  and  the  righteous  are  in  adversity.  In 
this  complaint  the  goods  referred  to  are  wealth,  health,  popular¬ 
ity,  and  other  worldly  advantages  belonging  to  the  natural,  not 

1  Und  so  lang  du  das  nicht  hast, 

Dieses  :  Stirb  und  werde,” 

Bist  du  nur  ein  triiber  Gast 
An  der  dunkeln  Erde. 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


245 


the  spiritual,  man,  —  to  this  transient  life,  not  to  the  life  eternal. 
But  God  is  not  so  impoverished  that  he  has  nothing  better  than 
these  things  with  which  to  bless  the  life  of  love. 

“  Wealth  on  the  vilest  often  is  bestowed 
To  show  its  vileness  in  the  sight  of  God.” 

The  highest  good  possible  in  this  universe,  constituted  as  it  is  in 
accordance  with  the  truth  and  law  of  eternal  wisdom,  and  gov¬ 
erned  in  perfect  wisdom  and  love,  is  the  development  and  per¬ 
fection  of  the  man  in  spiritual  life  and  power,  and  the  well-being 
and  blessedness  involved  therein.  These  highest  and  abid¬ 
ing  blessings  are  bestowed  with  unerring  discrimination  on  those 
who  are  serving  God  and  man  in  self-sacrificing  love,  and  be¬ 
stowed  in  immediate  consequence  of  every  act  of  loving  trust 
and  service.  The  contrary  spiritual  evil  comes  with  equal 
immediacy  and  certainty  on  the  doer  of  any  act  of  sinful  trust 
and  service  of  self.  Our  Saviour  promises  for  every  act  of  loving 
self-sacrifice  a  hundredfold  more  in  this  present  life.  Certainly 
the  spiritual  well-being  and  power  which  it  insures  is  worth  a 
hundredfold  more  than  the  money,  energy,  or  comfort  expended 
in  the  sacrifice.1 

In  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  life  there  will  be  conflict  and 
struggle  in  doing  duty.  The  service  to  be  rendered  maybe  pain¬ 
ful  and  the  sacrifice  severe.  George  Eliot  says  in  “  Romola”  :  “We 
can  have  the  highest  happiness  —  such  as  goes  along  with  being 

1  The  Complaint. 

“  How  seldom,  friend,  a  good  great  man  inherits 
Honors  or  wealth  with  all  his  toil  and  pains  ! 

It  sounds  like  stories  from  the  land  of  spirits, 

If  any  man  obtains  that  which  he  merits, 

Or  any  merits  that  which  he  obtains.” 

The  Reply. 

“  For  shame,  dear  friend,  forego  this  canting  strain. 

What  wouldst  thou  have  the  good  great  man  obtain  ? 

Wealth,  titles,  salary,  a  gilded  chain  ? 

Or  throne  of  corses  which  his  sword  had  slain  ? 

Goodness  and  greatness  are  not  means  but  ends. 

Hath  he  not  always  treasures,  always  friends, 

The  good  great  man  ?  Three  treasures,  —  life,  and  light. 

And  calm  thoughts  regular  as  an  infant’s  breath  ; 

And  three  firm  friends,  more  sure  than  day  and  night, — 
Himself,  his  Maker,  and  the  angel  Death.” 

S.  T.  Coleridge. 


246  TIIE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

a  great  man  —  only  by  having  wide  thoughts  and  much  feeling 
for  the  rest  of  the  world  as  well  as  for  ourselves ;  and  this  sort 
of  happiness  often  brings  so  much  pain  with  it  that  we  can  only 
tell  it  from  pain  by  its  being  what  we  choose  before  everything 
else,  because  our  souls  see  it  is  good.”  And  the  point  which  I 
have  now  been  making  is  that  every  act  of  service  in  self-sacrific¬ 
ing  love  immediately  contributes  something  to  strengthen  the 
love  and  to  bring  its  healing  and  life-giving  touch  upon  every 
power  and  susceptibility  of  the  soul ;  something  to  develop  the 
spontaneity,  enthusiasm,  and  real  freedom  of  love,  which  make 
self-denial  easy  and  transfigure  every  cross  into  a  joy  and  crown ; 
something  to  complete  to  fulness  all  spiritual  perfection,  power, 
and  blessedness.  And  thus  will  the  promise  be  fulfilled  :  “  They 
who  wait  upon  the  Lord  shall  renew  their  strength ;  they  shall 
mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles ;  they  shall  run  and  not  be  weary ; 
they  shall  walk  and  not  faint.” 

6.  The  good  attained  by  self-renouncing  and  self-sacrificing 
love  is  imperishable  and  everlasting.  This  is  the  “  riches  and 
honor,  the  durable  riches  and  righteousness,”  which  wisdom 
declares  are  hers.  It  is  the  “  treasures  in  heaven  where  neither 
moth  nor  rust  doth  consume  and  where  thieves  do  not  break 
through  nor  steal.”  It  is  riches  and  honor  which  can  never  be 
lost,  because  organized  into  the  spiritual  and  immortal  man  him¬ 
self.  Wherever  his  lot  may  be  cast  he  carries  with  him  and  in¬ 
separable  from  him  these  imperishable  treasures,  this  never-fading 
honor.  The  Christian  assurance  of  this  is  quaintly  expressed  in 
an  epitaph  on  an  old  tombstone  in  Tiverton,  England  : 

“Hoe!  hoe!  who  lyes  here? 

’T  is  I,  thee  goode  Erie  of  Devonshire, 

With  Kate,  my  wife,  to  mee  full  dere. 

We  lyved  togeather  fifty  fyve  yere. 

That  wee  spent,  wee  had ; 

That  wee  lefte,  wee  loste ; 

That  wee  gave,  wee  have.”  1 

1  “  The  world  teaches  me  that  it  is  madness  to  leave  what  I  may  carry 
with  me ;  Christianity  teaches  me  that  what  I  charitably  give  while  alive  I 
may  carry  with  me  after  death  ;  experience  teaches  me  that  what  I  leave 
behind,  I  lose.  I  will  carry  with  me  by  giving  away  that  treasure  which  the 
worldling  loses  by  keeping;  and  thus,  while  his  corpse  shall  carry  nothing 
but  a  winding  sheet  to  his  grave,  I  shall  be  richer  under  ground  than  I  was 
above  it.”  (Bishop  Hall,  “Devotional  Works,”  pp.  496,  497.) 

“  Such  as  have  been  plundered  of  their  estates  in  the  wars  may  be  content 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


247 


Its  Christian  significance  is  the  more  striking  when  contrasted  with 
an  epitaph  found  on  an  ancient  Roman  tombstone,  expressing 
the  darkness  and  hopelessness  of  the  heathen  mind.  “  What  I 
have  eaten  and  drunk  I  have  taken  with  me ;  all  else  I  have  left 
behind.” 

The  paradox  that  self-development  is  by  self-renunciation  and 
self-sacrifice,  that  we  must  die  in  order  to  live,  has  been  called 
the  Secret  of  Jesus.  Yet  it  is  essential  in  the  idea  of  the  love  re¬ 
quired  in  the  moral  law  and  disclosed  in  the  normal  development 
of  the  rational  and  moral  constitution  of  man.  Hence  even  hea¬ 
then  writers  have  come  to  the  knowledge  of  it.  It  is  declared, 
for  example,  in  an  epigram  of  Martial,  which  has  been  translated 
by  Bryant : 

“  Thieves  may  break  in  and  bear  away  your  gold, 

The  cruel  flames  may  lay  your  mansion  low. 

Your  dues  the  faithless  debtor  may  withhold, 

Your  fields  may  not  return  the  grain  you  sow, 

A  spendthrift  steward  at  your  cost  may  live, 

Your  ships  may  founder  with  their  precious  store; 

But  wealth  bestowed  is  safe  ;  —  for  what  you  give, 

And  that  alone,  is  yours  forevermore.” 

Fichte  says  :  “  There  is  nothing  real,  lasting,  imperishable  in 

me  but  these  two  elements  :  the  voice  of  conscience  and  my  free 
obedience.  By  the  first,  the  spiritual  world  bows  to  me  and  em¬ 
braces  me  as  one  of  its  own  members ;  by  the  second,  I  raise 
myself  into  this  world  and  can  comprehend  it  and  act  in  and 
upon  it.”  But  the  obedience  is  possible  only  in  the  actual  ex¬ 
ercise  of  self-renouncing  love  to  God  and  man.  Only  in  this 
does  man  claim  his  birthright  in  the  moral  system,  assert  his 
dignity  as  a  child  of  God,  and  live  worthy  of  his  high  calling  as 
having  a  personal  interest  in  all  the  grandeurs  of  the  moral  system 
under  the  government  of  God  and  as  a  worker  together  with  God 
in  the  advancement  of  his  kingdom. 

and  comfort  themselves  with  this  consideration,  that  so  long  as  they  en¬ 
joyed  plenty  they  freely  parted  with  a  proportion  thereof  to  the  relief  of  the 
poor :  what  they  gave,  that  they  have ;  it  still  remaineth  theirs.  Although 
Job  lost  his  seven  thousand  sheep,  being  consumed  by  fire,  yet  he  still  kept 
the  wool  of  many  of  them ;  for  the  patriarch  affirms  that  the  poor  were 
warmed  with  the  fleece  of  his  sheep.  So  much  of  his  wool  (in  the  cloth 
made  thereof)  he  secured  in  a  safe  hand,  lending  it  to  God  (in  poor  people) 
as  the  best  of  debtors,  being  most  able  and  willing  to  repay  it.”  (Thomas 
Fuller,  “  Good  Thoughts  in  Bad  Times,”  pp.  241,  242.) 


248  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


7.  The  full  perfection,  power,  and  blessedness  developed  by 
self-sacrificing  love  is  completed  only  in  the  life  eternal  in  heaven. 
We  have  seen  that  God’s  love  in  its  essential  quality  is  the  same 
in  kind  with  the  self-sacrificing  love  required  of  man  ;  and  that 
it  is  so  revealed  under  human  limitations  and  conditions  in  Christ. 
We  have  seen  also  that  Christ  in  his  self-sacrificing  love  reveals 
the  ideal  man  in  his  earthly  condition ;  and  in  his  exaltation  the 
ideal  of  man  as  consummated  in  the  heavenly  glory.  The  com¬ 
mand  is,  Let  this  mind  be  in  you  which  was  also  in  Christ.  And 
the  apostle  immediately  presents  the  revelation  of  God’s  love  in 
Christ  as  a  double  humiliation ;  first,  being  in  the  form  of  God, 
he  emptied  himself,  taking  the  form  of  a  servant  and  being  made 
in  the  likeness  of  men  ;  and  secondly,  being  found  in  fashion  as 
a  man,  he  humbled  himself  still  further  to  death,  even  the  death 
of  the  cross.  And  in  correspondence  with  this  we  see  in  man  a 
double  exaltation.  First,  in  self-sacrificing  love,  he  is  to  realize 
the  ideal  of  man  in  his  earthly  life ;  and,  then,  glorified  with 
Christ,  in  love  triumphant  in  heaven,  he  realizes  the  likeness  of 
God.  While,  then,  the  command,  at  first  sight,  seems  to  demand 
depths  of  humiliation  and  sacrifice  too  great  for  man  to  endure, 
in  its  deeper  significance  it  opens  to  man  the  highest  privilege, 
the  grandest  opportunity,  the  most  glorious  hope.  It  invites  him 
by  self-sacrifice  to  realize  in  himself  all  that  is  great  and  powerful 
and  good  in  the  perfect  man,  and  thereby  to  become  like  God 
who  is  love.  And  this  divine  likeness  begins  to  form  itself  in  the 
man  as  soon  as  he  renounces  self  in  loving  trust  in  God.  It  is 
further  developed  in  every  act  of  loving  service.  It  is  consum¬ 
mated  in  the  heavenly  glory.  “  Beloved,  now  are  we  children  of 
God,  and  it  is  not  yet  made  manifest  what  we  shall  be.  We 
know  that  when  he  shall  be  manifested,  we  shall  be  like  him ;  for 
we  shall  see  him  even  as  he  is.” 

IV.  Love  is  Disinterested.  —  The  objection  is  urged  that,  if 
right  action  insures  the  person’s  highest  blessedness,  it  will  be 
vitiated  by  selfishness  and  cannot  be  an  act  of  disinterested  love. 
It  has  even  been  denied  that  any  person  ever  acts  from  dis¬ 
interested  love. 

The  answer  is  that  love  is  in  its  essence  the  renunciation  of  self, 
and  that  the  action  in  which  it  is  manifested  is  not  getting,  pos¬ 
sessing,  and  using,  but  trusting  and  serving.  The  act  of  trusting 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


249 


in  God  is  itself  an  act  of  self-renunciation  :  because  in  it  the  per¬ 
son  renounces  his  self-sufficiency  and  self-glorifying ;  and  the 
action  of  serving  God  and  our  neighbor  is  an  act  of  self-renuncia¬ 
tion,  because  in  it  the  person  renounces  his  self-will  and  self-seek¬ 
ing.  Such  love  is  in  its  essence  and  all  its  action  disinterested. 
As  this  answer  is  further  unfolded  it  will  be  seen  that  the  objec¬ 
tion  rests  on  a  misconception  of  the  meaning  of  self-renunciation, 
disinterestedness  and  love.  If  by  “  disinterested  ”  the  objector 
means  love  to  another  in  which  the  person  loving  is  devoid  of  all 
regard  to  his  own  well-being,  it  is  true  that  there  is  no  love  which 
in  that  sense  is  disinterested.  It  properly  means  love  to  another 
in  which  love  to  self  or  regard  to  one’s  own  interest  is  not  the 
dominant  and  ultimate  motive.  In  this  sense  all  Christian  love 
is  disinterested.  It  is  love  to  self  or  seeking  one’s  own  well-being 
co-ordinated  with  equal  love  to  one’s  neighbor,  respecting  his 
rights  and  seeking  his  well-being,  and  both  subordinated  under 
love  to  God  as  supreme. 

1.  The  objection  rests  on  Hedonism.  It  assumes  that,  if  a 
person’s  highest  happiness  is  the  result  of  right  action,  every  one 
will  seek  it  as  his  supreme  end.  Ritschl,  for  example,  holds  that 
of  retributive,  especially  of  punitive,  justice  there  ought  to  be  no 
mention  in  the  moral  and  religious  sphere.  If  we  may  speak  of 
punishment,  reward  for  right  action  may  be  spoken  of  with  no 
less  right.  But  the  consequence  of  admitting  the  notion  of  re¬ 
ward  into  the  kingdom  of  God  or  the  moral  sphere  would  be,  that 
the  law  of  love  would  be  fulfilled  for  the  sake  of  reward,  instead 
of  from  love  which  asks  no  reward.1  But  this  is  true  only  on  the 
Hedonistic  principle  that  the  one  and  only  ultimate  aim  of  all 
human  action  is  the  person’s  own  happiness.  In  contradiction 
to  this,  true  philosophy  gives  a  basis  for  recognizing  other  ends. 
In  the  life  of  nature  a  person  must  have  some  desire,  affection  or 
preference  for  an  object  before  he  can  find  happiness  in  it.  And 
in  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  a  person  must  love  God  and  his 
neighbor  before  he  can  find  happiness  in  serving  them.  The 
happiness  presupposes  the  love  to  God  and  man,  and  thus  proves 
that  the  love  is  not  a  selfish  desire  of  the  person’s  own  happiness. 
On  the  contrary  if  a  person  serves  another  for  the  supreme  end 
of  promoting  his  own  interests,  he  is  serving  himself  and  using 

1  Ritschl,  “  Die  Christl.  Lehre  der  Rechtfertigung  und  Versohnung,”  iii. 
211-219. 


250  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


his  neighbor ;  the  service  is  a  manifestation  of  selfishness,  not 
of  love ;  and  the  common  sentiment  of  mankind  condemns  it  as 
such.  Self-renouncing  love  insures  to  the  person  his  own  highest 
happiness.  But  if  his  own  happiness  is  his  supreme  end,  he  does 
not  love  God  and  his  neighbor.  And  Paul  makes  this  discrimina¬ 
tion  between  love  and  a  seeming  service  of  love,  though  carried 
to  the  greatest  extreme  of  self-denial :  “  If  I  bestow  all  my  goods 
to  feed  the  poor,  and  if  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned,  but  have 
not  love,  it  profiteth  me  nothing.” 

2.  The  objection  makes  no  distinction  between  supreme  love  to 
self  and  love  to  self  in  full  recognition  of  the  equal  rights  of  others 
and  of  obligation  to  God.  The  self-renunciation  required  in  the 
law  is  the  renunciation  of  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and 
service.  It  is  not  the  giving  up  of  all  desire  of  happiness  and  of 
all  interest  in  one’s  own  well-being.  The  attempt  to  attain  one’s 
own  well-being,  as  against  the  common  well-being  of  the  com¬ 
munity  and  irrespective  of  the  rights  of  others  in  it,  is  selfishness. 
The  endeavor  to  promote  one’s  own  well-being  with  recognition 
of  the  equal  rights  of  others  in  the  moral  system  and  in  promo¬ 
tion  of  their  well-being  is  not  selfishness.  The  second  great 
commandment  does  not  say,  Love  thy  neighbor  and  not  thyself, 
but  as  thyself. 

The  objection  assumes  that  love  is  complete  altruism  and  re¬ 
quires  the  extinction  of  all  personal  desires  and  of  all  interest 
in  one’s  own  welfare.  The  supreme  choice  of  self  isolates  the 
person’s  own  welfare  from  the  welfare  of  others,  and  brings  him 
into  antagonism  to  them  ;  it  may  excite  him,  if  unrestrained  by 
stronger  force  or  contrary  selfish  impulses,  to  raven  among  them 
like  a  wolf  among  lambs.  And  this  is  suggested  in  the  technical 
use  of  the  word  “  lambs  ”  on  Wall  street.  In  the  renunciation 
of  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service,  this  isolation 
and  antagonism  cease.  The  well-being  of  self  is  no  longer  in¬ 
compatible  with  that  of  the  neighbor.  The  well-being  of  the  one 
is  no  longer  necessarily  impaired  by  the  well-being  of  the  other. 
But  each  finds  his  own  well-being  in  promoting  the  interest  of 
the  other ;  they  co-operate  in  the  reciprocal  service  of  love. 
This  does  not  extinguish  all  love  of  self,  but  each  loves  himself 
as  he  loves  the  other ;  each  promotes  his  own  welfare  in  promot¬ 
ing  that  of  the  other. 

This  false  conception  of  love  as  complete  altruism  is  exempli- 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


251 


fied  by  Spinoza :  “  He  who  loves  God  must  not  endeavor  to  have 
God  love  him  in  return.”  1  But  in  fact,  instead  of  extinguishing 
selfishness,  this  enjoins  the  extreme  of  self-sufficiency.  It  re¬ 
quires  a  man  to  set  up  as  sufficient  for  himself,  not  asking  or 
seeking  the  gracious  influence  of  God’s  love,  apart  from  which 
no  finite  person  can  attain  his  normal  perfection,  power,  and 
blessedness.  And  the  demand  of  the  objector  for  complete  and 
exclusive  altruism  as  essential  to  disinterested  love  must  issue 
in  the  extreme  of  false  asceticism  aiming  to  crush  out  every 
desire  and  joy  and  making  a  merit  of  self-inflicted  privation 
and  suffering.  This  involves  self-righteousness ;  and  thus  again 
the  attempt  to  extinguish  all  love  of  self  issues  in  developing 
selfishness. 

Those  who  deny  that  disinterested  love  exists,  probably  suppose 
it  to  be  complete  and  exclusive  altruism. 

3.  The  objection  rests  on  the  assumption  that  law  is  an  arbi¬ 
trary  enactment ;  that,  therefore,  punishment  is  penalty  prescribed 
and  inflicted  from  without ;  and  that  the  good  which  results 
from  self-renouncing  love  is  only  wages  or  reward  given  by 
another  for  service  rendered.  On  the  contrary,  the  law  is  eternal 
in  the  absolute  reason,  is  attested  in  the  constitution  of  man,  and 
determines  the  constitution  of  the  universe  ;  and  good  accruing 
from  obedience  is  primarily  the  person’s  own  perfection,  power, 
and  blessedness  and  his  harmony  with  his  environment,  de¬ 
veloped  by  his  life  of  self-renouncing  love,  trusting  and  serving 
God,  and  doing  all  his  duty  to  man.  It  is  not,  therefore,  payment 
or  reward  for  doing  duty  in  obedience  to  an  arbitrary  enactment. 
And  the  penalty  for  wrong-doing  is  primarily  the  corruption  and 
perversion  of  the  man  in  the  life  of  trusting  and  serving  self 
supremely,  and  his  consequent  disharmony  with  his  environment. 
Therefore,  for  the  sinner  persisting  in  sin,  blessedness  is  impossi¬ 
ble  ;  the  prolonging  of  his  life  must  be  only  the  prolonging  of 
his  corruption,  debasement,  and  wretchedness.  Certainly  it  is 
no  proof  of  selfishness  that  a  person  realizes  the  perfection  and 
well-being  which  his  whole  course  of  right  living,  according 
to  the  constitution  of  himself  and  of  the  universe,  must  surely 
develop. 

4.  A  necessary  inference  is  that  the  objection,  if  valid,  implies 

1  “  Qui  Deum  amat,  conari  non  potest  ut  Deus  ipsum  contra  amet.” 
(Ethics,  Bk.  V.  xix.) 


252  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


the  subversion  of  the  moral  system.  It  assumes  that,  if  the 
universe  is  so  constituted,  expressing  the  archetypal  thought 
of  God’s  eternal  wisdom  and  love,  that  a  life  of  self-renouncing 
love  to  God  and  man  issues  in  the  person’s  true  well-being,  then 
for  any  one  knowing  this  fact  love  would  be  impossible ;  for  its 
very  exercise  would  transform  it  into  supreme  selfishness.  But 
if  it  were  so  constituted  that  a  life  of  love  would  not  insure  well¬ 
being,  then  the  constitution  of  the  universe  would  itself  be 
immoral,  contradicting  the  moral  law  of  love.  This  absurdity 
is  escaped  only  by  acknowledging  that  self-renouncing  love  is 
the  renunciation  of  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and 
service  in  the  supreme  choice  of  God  and  our  neighbor;  not 
the  renunciation  of  self  as  a  rational,  free  person,  in  the  likeness 
of  God  and  legitimately  entitled  to  trust  and  service  according 
to  his  true  character  and  his  actual  place  and  relations  in  the 
moral  system  and  under  the  government  of  God. 

5.  The  hope  of  immortality  is  a  motive  stimulating  not  to  self¬ 
ishness  but  to  self-renouncing  love.  The  objection  of  the  mate¬ 
rialist,  that  virtue  not  looking  beyond  this  life  is  purer  than  that 
which  is  animated  by  the  Christian  hope  is  already  refuted. 
It  rests,  as  we  have  seen,  on  false  assumptions  and  inaccurate 
definitions.  If  one  denies  his  immortality,  his  own  constitution 
as  a  rational  and  immortal  being  remains  unchanged,  and  his 
reason  and  conscience  will  still  assert  the  distinction  of  right  and 
wrong  and  the  obligation  to  duty.  Therefore  morality  may 
remain.  But  he  can  feel  no  longer  the  great  motives  to  self- 
renouncing  love  which  spring  from  man’s  conscious  relations  to 
God  and  his  participation  in  the  great  work  of  advancing  God’s 
kingdom.  Morality  may  remain.  But  it  is  a  morality  for  seventy 
years,  shut  up  to  the  transitory  interests  of  this  life,  shut  out  from 
the  grand  scope  of  the  divine  likeness  and  relations  and  the 
immortal  interests  of  man.  The  life  of  love  would  be  unable  to 
develop  itself  in  its  loftiest  aspirations,  its  widest  scope,  its  most 
far-reaching  aims  and  its  greatest  spiritual  power.  Matthew 
Arnold  defines  religion  as  morality  lit  up  with  emotion.  Rather 
religion  is  the  consciousness  of  God  and  of  ourselves  in  our 
relations  to  God,  which  gives  the  truth  which  illuminates,  the 
glowing  emotions  which  accompany,  and  the  spiritual  motives 
which  vitalize,  inspire,  and  ennoble  morality.  Religion  and 
morality  in  the  spiritual  life  are  analogous  to  genius  and  talent 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


253 


in  the  intellectual  life.  As  genius  flashes  light  into  the  heart 
of  things  which  talent  with  all  its  laborious  investigations  misses, 
so  religion  illuminates  the  whole  sphere  of  man’s  relations  to  God 
and  his  kingdom,  and  of  his  immortal  existence,  which  morality 
without  religion  never  finds. 

And  here  is  the  Christian  optimism.  With  these  large  views 
of  God  and  of  his  own  union  with  him  and  of  his  participation  in 
God’s  great  plans  and  working  with  him,  the  Christian  is  coura¬ 
geous,  hopeful,  and  joyous  in  the  presence  of  evil.  Knowing 
himself  as  a  child  of  God,  a  spiritual  being  in  a  spiritual  system, 
he  knows  no  bounding  wall  of  necessity  and  evil  on  which  his 
life  must  be  wrecked.  All  evils  befalling  him,  death  itself,  all 
limits  of  the  finite,  are  only  doors  opening  as  he  approaches  them, 
through  which  he  is  to  pass  to  a  larger  freedom,  a  greater  spon¬ 
taneity  and  enthusiasm,  a  fuller  realization  of  himself,  a  mightier 
spiritual  power,  wider  and  more  interesting  fields  of  enterprise,  a 
closer  union  with  God,  a  more  full  participation  in  the  divine  life, 
and  a  more  abundant  entrance  into  the  divine  work.  Thus  in 
the  vision  of  God  and  immortality  the  pains  of  life  are  sifted  out 
and  its  blessedness  remains  and  grows. 

If  thou  do  ill,  the  joy  fades,  not  the  pains ; 

If  well,  the  pain  doth  fade,  the  joy  remains. 

George  Herbert. 

Therefore  the  Christian  is  always  justified  in  saying :  “  Be  it  ours 
to  doubt  the  glooms  but  not  the  glories  of  our  souls ;  to  distrust 
the  suggestions  of  lower  and  more  earthly  hours,  and  scatter  the 
fears  of  the  slothful  and  unawakened  heart.” 

V.  Individuation  and  Co-operation. — The  individual  must 
exist  before  he  can  serve  others  or  co-operate  with  them.  He 
must  be  developed  toward  realizing  the  perfection  of  his  being 
and  the  fulness  of  his  power  in  order  to  render  the  most  effec¬ 
tive  service  and  most  wisely  and  effectively  to  co-operate  with 
others  like-minded  in  promoting  the  well-being  of  mankind. 
This  principle  is  recognized  as  fundamental  in  the  development 
of  the  kingdom  of  God.  This  kingdom  is  developed  first  by  the 
new  birth  of  individuals  under  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
to  the  spiritual  life  of  love ;  then  by  the  union  and  co-operation 
of  these  individuals  in  brotherly  love,  all  working  together  to 
influence  other  individuals  to  return  to  God  and  begin  the  life  of 


254  THE  LORD  of  all  in  moral  government 

love,  to  train  all  children  in  the  life  of  love,  to  bring  all  human 
institutions,  laws,  and  usages  into  conformity  with  the  law  of  love, 
and  with  the  aim  ultimately  to  transform  human  society  into  the 
kingdom  of  God.  Therefore  every  person  is  under  obligation  to 
seek  the  normal  and  full  development  of  himself  in  moral  charac¬ 
ter  and  in  all  his  susceptibilities  and  powers  in  unison  with  God 
in  the  life  and  work  of  love  in  order  that  he  may  do  the  most 
effective  work  in  the  service  of  God  in  doing  good  to  men  and 
advancing  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  This  seeking  his  own 
complete  development  is  not  selfishness ;  because  the  person’s 
good-will  to  himself  must  be  exercised  in  righteousness,  therefore 
in  loving  and  scrupulous  regard  to  the  rights  of  others ;  because 
the  well-being  which  he  seeks  is  itself  the  perfection  of  his  being, 
in  universal  love  in  exact  accordance  with  the  principles  and  laws 
of  universal  reason ;  because  his  good-will  to  himself  is  subordi¬ 
nate  to  his  supreme  love  to  God  and  co-ordinate  with  his  equal 
love  to  his  neighbor.  Accordingly,  in  enunciating  the  two  great 
commandments,  Christ  requires  every  one  to  love  his  neighbor  as 
himself ;  and  this  equally  requires  that  every  one  love  himself  as 
his  neighbor ;  because  it  makes  love  to  self  the  measure  of  love 
to  the  neighbor.  Therefore,  if  the  law  does  not  require  love  to 
self,  it  equally  fails  to  require  love  to  the  neighbor.  Christian 
love,  therefore,  is  not  egoism  alone,  which  is  selfishness,  nor 
altruism  alone,  which  is  sinful  self-neglect  and  tends  to  weakness. 
It  is  both,  in  the  co-operation  of  individuals  under  love  to  God  as 
supreme,  seeking  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness. 

We  find  an  analogy  to  this  process  from  individuation  to  co¬ 
operation  in  the  development  of  organic  life.  If  you  examine  a 
hen’s  egg  at  successive  periods  in  the  process  of  incubation,  you 
find  first  the  homogeneous  yolk ;  then  diversification,  red  streaks 
shooting  out  in  different  directions ;  then  partial  unification  with 
diversification  in  the  development  of  different  parts  and  organs ; 
then  complete  unification  in  the  living  chicken,  in  which  all  the 
individual  organs  cooperate  in  sustaining  its  life  and  nourishing 
its  growth.  We  find  also  an  analogy  in  the  evolution  of  the  solar 
system  ;  first  the  homogeneous  ;  then,  in  the  beginning  of  motion, 
diversification,  the  atoms  interacting  mechanically,  the  ultimate 
simple  elements  uniformly  diffused,  as  Spencer  teaches,  throughout 
the  mass,  separating  as  simple  substances  and  uniting  in  distinct 
chemical  combinations,  —  the  mass  breaking  into  rings  around  the 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


255 


central  sun,  the  rings  condensing  into  planets,  and  the  co-opera¬ 
tion  of  sun  and  planets  in  the  unity  of  the  solar  system.  The 
solar  system  itself  is  probably  a  unit  among  many  similar  systems 
of  worlds  beyond  our  knowledge  in  the  unity  of  the  physical 
universe.  These  are  two  examples,  among  many  which  might  be 
mentioned,  of  the  individuation  and  the  co-operation  essential  in 
the  development  of  the  physical  universe.1 

This  is  analogous  to  the  development  of  the  moral  system,  so 
far  as  we  observe  it  in  the  history  of  man.  This  necessarily 
begins  with  the  coming  into  being  of  rational,  self-determining 
individuals.  As  the  physical  system  presupposes  individual  atoms 
as  the  primary  units  even  in  the  original  homogeneous  nebulous 
matter,  so  individuals,  that,  is  indivisible  persons,  are  the  primary 
units  in  the  moral  system.  When  man  appears,  the  evolution  is 
already  far  advanced  beyond  the  homogeneous.  But,  perhaps,  in 
the  homogeneous  nebulous  matter  of  the  physical  system  we  may 
imagine  an  analogy  with  the  barbarism  of  primitive  men,  as  yet 
undeveloped  and  without  organizations  and  institutions.  But  it 
can  be  only  a  remote  analogy.  The  homogeneous  matter  must 
have  been  motionless.  Men  in  their  lowest  condition,  however 
undeveloped,  were  rational  free  agents  putting  forth  their  energies 
in  action.  Man’s  action  from  the  beginning  must  have  been  both 
individuating  and  co-operating.  He  must  seek  food  and  whatever 
he  consciously  needs  for  himself.  He  is  also  by  his  very  constitu¬ 
tion  an  organizer.  He  cannot  develop  himself  as  an  individual 
without  the  co-operation  of  other  men.  If  any  child  exposed  by 
its  parents  ever  grew  up  apart  from  men  and  associating  only  with 
beasts,  it  would  never  have  been  developed  even  to  the  power  of 
using  language.  Primitive  men  must  have  co-operated,  or  they 
would  have  perished.  Anthropologists  probably  have  not  suffi- 

1  Love,  in  the  sense  in  which  Christ  uses  the  word,  can  exist  only  in 
persons  endowed  with  reason  and  free  will  and  so  in  the  likeness  of  God. 
Therefore,  in  the  lower  sphere  we  can  only  trace  analogies,  a  likeness  be¬ 
tween  objects  essentially  different.  On  account  of  the  essential  difference 
between  the  physical  and  the  spiritual,  the  impersonal  and  the  personal,  it  is 
unreasonable  to  demand  more  than  analogies  and  to  urge  the  fact  that  there 
is  no  identity  or  complete  resemblance  as  an  objection  to  the  reality  of 
God’s  revelation  in  each.  But  we  find  even  identity  in  this,  that,  in  all  that 
pertains  distinctively  to  the  sphere  of  the  physical  or  impersonal,  it  is  con¬ 
stituted  and  evolved  in  exact  accordance  with  the  principles  and  laws  of 
human  reason  and  for  the  progressive  realization  of  an  ideal,  so  far  as  these 
principles  and  laws  are  applicable  within  that  sphere. 


256  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


cient  knowledge  of  facts  to  decide  with  certainty  the  process 
through  which  the  family  originated.  It  must  have  been  in  some 
form  one  of  the  earlier  organizations.  Then,  if  the  patriarchal 
theory  of  the  development  of  government  is  true,  the  family  de¬ 
veloped  into  the  clan,  the  tribe,  and,  ultimately,  the  nation.  As 
the  father  was  supposed  to  have  the  power  of  life  and  death  over 
his  children,  the  patriarch  is  a  despot.  Thus  originated  the 
doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings.  The  authority  of  the 
patriarch  is  transmitted  to  his  heir.  Thus  eventually  the  repre¬ 
sentative  of  a  particular  family  is  supposed  to  have  a  divine  right 
to  reign.  Hence  resulted  the  crushing  of  personal  rights.  The 
doctrine  became  current  that  the  subjects  have  no  rights  as 
related  to  the  government,  but  only  owe  duties ;  and  the  govern¬ 
ment  owes  no  duties  to  the  subjects,  but  only  asserts  its  own 
rights.  The  progress  of  society,  therefore,  was  in  the  direction  of 
asserting  the  rights  of  individuals.  Now  in  Christian  countries 
the  right  of  the  people  to  participate  in  the  government  is  recog¬ 
nized.  In  asserting  the  principle  of  development  in  the  line  of 
individuation  some  go  to  the  extreme  of  rejecting  co-operation. 
The  result  is  the  demand  for  the  extinction  of  all  government 
whether  divine  or  human.  Such  are  the  Nihilists  and  the 
Anarchists.  On  the  other  hand,  in  asserting  the  principle  of  co¬ 
operation,  the  principle  of  individuation  is  overlooked.  Then 
communists  and  socialists  go  to  the  extreme  of  crushing  out  the 
individual  as  effectively  as  the  worst  despotism  does.  They  take 
away  the  motive  to  self-assertion,  self-support,  and  self-develop¬ 
ment,  so  that,  should  their  theories  be  carried  out,  man  would 
degenerate  towards  barbarism.  Closely  allied  with  this  is  the 
teaching  that  we  must  first  better  the  physical  and  social  condi¬ 
tion  of  men  so  that,  in  respect  to  these,  all  shall  be  on  a  level, 
and  then  their  moral  reformation  will  follow.  This  reverses 
Christ’s  maxim,  “  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his 
righteousness,  and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you,”  and 
says,  Seek  ye  first  all  these  things,  and  the  kingdom  of  God  and 
the  righteousness  which  he  requires  will  be  added.  Whatever 
aid  to  efforts  for  moral  and  spiritual  reformation  and  develop¬ 
ment  may  come  from  improving  the  outward  condition,  it  must 
always  remain  true  that  the  character  of  society  can  be  improved 
only  as  the  individuals  composing  it  become  better  and  wiser  and 
make  progress  in  their  moral  development.  Make  the  tree  good, 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


257 


and  the  fruit  will  be  good.  And  the  development  of  right  char¬ 
acter  is  the  most  important  factor  in  improving  the  outward  con¬ 
dition  of  the  individual.  Man  can  be  normally  developed  only 
as  he  puts  forth  his  energies  both  in  individuating  himself  and 
also  in  co-operation  with  his  fellow-men,  in  subordination  to 
love  to  God  as  supreme  and  in  willing  obedience  to  his  eternal 
law.  This  is  the  explicit  teaching  of  Christ  in  the  two  great 
commandments.  The  progress  of  man,  therefore,  begins  in 
individuation  and  diversification  and  goes  on  in  co-operation, 
thereby  not  suppressing  but  effecting  the  true  development  of 
the  individual. 

We  now  see  political  organizations  in  the  Christian  nations 
with  government  recognizing  at  once  individuation  and  co-opera¬ 
tion.  We  see  also  churches  organized  for  religious  worship  and 
service,  working  in  co-operation  for  the  development  of  the  indi¬ 
vidual  Christian  and  the  progressive  christianizing  of  society.  We 
see  also  innumerable  voluntary  associations  for  co-operation^as  well 
as  for  self-improvement  and  well-being,  in  work,  business,  and  all 
industrial  pursuits,  in  politics,  in  education,  and  for  the  promo¬ 
tion  of  good  government  and  of  morality  and  religion.  The 
principle  is,  that,  as  individuals  must  unite  in  organizations,  so 
these  organizations  must  co-operate  with  one  another  in  a  more 
comprehensive  union.  In  the  progress  of  man  an  urgent  problem 
now  before  the  philanthropist  is  to  bring  the  organizations  them¬ 
selves  to  work  together  in  harmony  under  the  Christian  law  of 
good-will  regulated  in  all  its  exercise  in  righteousness  and  respect¬ 
ing  the  rights  of  all. 

The  necessity  of  the  co-ordination  of  individuation  and  co-oper¬ 
ation  becomes  more  evident  and  urgent  with  the  progress  of  man 
in  science  and  in  invention,  in  which  he  progressively  increases  his 
knowledge  of  nature  and  his  control  of  its  forces  for  his  own  use. 
Formerly  spinning  and  weaving,  shoemaking,  and  much  other  work 
were  done  by  individuals,  each  in  his  own  private  house  or  shop ; 
travelling  on  land  was  on  foot  or  with  horses.  In  those  days  a 
much  larger  proportion  of  business  could  be  done  by  isolated 
individuals  than  can  be  done  now.  An  isolated  individual  cannot 
build  and  run  a  great  factory,  or  a  railroad  across  the  continent. 
Corporations  have  become  a  necessity.  The  common  declama¬ 
tion  against  them  is  misdirected.  Corporations  are  indispensable 
to  the  doing  of  the  business  of  the  world.  The  remedy  for  any 
vol.  11.  —  1 7 


258  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


evils  connected  with  them  is  not  that  the  corporations  be  dis¬ 
solved  and  the  business  distributed  to  isolated  individuals,  nor 
that  the  state  assume  the  business,  nor  that  it  so  restrict  their 
management  by  legislation  that  the  business  cannot  yield  a  rea¬ 
sonable  profit.  The  only  effectual  and  safe  remedy  is  so  to 
christianize  society  that  the  managers  of  great  corporations 
shall  conduct  their  business  under  the  law  of  good-will  regulated 
in  its  exercise  by  righteousness  and  in  friendly  co-operation  with 
all  others.  The  same  principles  apply  to  organizations  of 
laborers  and  wage-earners.  It  is  right  for  them  to  associate 
in  societies  for  mutual  help  and  improvement,  and  for  co-opera¬ 
tion  in  securing  their  just  rights.  The  error  and  wrong  are  in 
acting  through  their  association  in  the  spirit  of  selfishness  and 
domination  without  regard  to  the  just  rights  of  others,  and  in 
subjecting  themselves  to  despotic  dictation  without  opportunity 
to  investigate  and  determine  for  themselves.  The  remedy  is  that 
the  association  conduct  their  business  in  Christian  good-will  regu¬ 
lated  in  its  exercise  by  righteousness,  respecting  the  rights  and 
welfare  of  others  as  really  as  their  own. 

The  same  principle  applies  to  nations.  The  people  are  organ¬ 
ized  in  nations.  The  Christian  nations  in  their  constitutions 
recognize,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  the  rights  of  the  people. 
But  they  are  still  far  from  friendly  co-operation  with  one  another, 
except  so  far  as  two  or  more  of  them  form  alliances  in  antagonism 
to  others.  As  related  to  other  nations  they  stand  in  isolation 
and  jealousy.  By  prohibitory  duties  they  would  close  their  mar¬ 
kets  to  foreign  merchandise.  They  are  always  armed  against 
each  other  at  enormous  expense  to  themselves.  The  duelist’s 
law  of  honor,  which  is  passing  away  in  its  application  to  indi¬ 
viduals,  is  still  the  law  of  action  between  nations. 

Christians  are  also  distributed  into  different  organizations,  not 
only  on  account  of  different  locations  which  render  them  neces¬ 
sary,  but  also  in  the  same  locality  on  account  of  minor  differences 
of  belief  or  practice.  Thus  to  a  great  extent  they  fail  to  co-ope¬ 
rate,  if  they  do  not  to  some  extent  oppose  each  other.  In  explain¬ 
ing  the  law  of  individuation  and  co-operation  I  have  presented 
the  analogy  of  the  development  of  a  living  organism.  Paul  uses  the 
same  analogy.  He  presents  the  unity  of  Christ’s  disciples  as  an¬ 
alogous  to  that  of  the  different  organs  and  limbs  united  in  the 
human  body.  No  organ  or  member  of  the  body  gives  up  its  indi- 


LOVE  AS  SELF-RENOUNCING 


259 


vidual  function  to  the  whole  body,  or  attempts  the  function  of  any 
other  organ  or  member,  or  puts  itself  into  antagonism  to  them. 
Each  exercises  its  individual  function  in  co-operation  with  all  the 
others  ;  and  the  failure  or  disease  of  one  debilitates  or  cripples  the 
whole  body.  If  one  member  suffer,  all  the  members  suffer  with 
it.  “  Ye  are  the  body  of  Christ,  and  severally  members  thereof” 
(1  Cor.  xii.  12-31;  Rom.  xii.  4,  5;  Eph.  ii.  16;  v.  25-32; 
Col.  iii.  15).  Thus  we  see  the  far-reaching  significance  of  the 
designation  of  Christians  as  the  body  of  Christ.  There  must  be 
distinct  organizations  of  Christians  in  different  towns  and  coun¬ 
tries  and  in  the  same  city  when  the  number  is  so  large  that  they 
cannot  meet  in  one  house  for  worship  and  the  work  to  be  done 
in  different  localities  requires  several  churches.  But  they  should 
remember  that  they  are  one  in  Christ,  one  in  Christian  character, 
life,  and  work,  members  or  organs  of  one  living  body,  the  body 
of  Christ, —  not  in  oneness  of  flesh  and  blood,  but  in  the  spirit  of 
Christian  faith  and  love,  in  union  with  Christ  through  the  indwel¬ 
ling  Spirit,  and  working  together  with  God  and  with  one  another 
to  bring  all  men  into  unity  in  love  to  God  and  man  through  God’s 
grace  in  Christ,  and  thus  progressively  realizing  the  ideal  of  his 
kingdom.  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself, 
seeks  every  individual  to  draw  him  to  himself  in  the  life  of  love. 
All  who  yield  to  his  drawing  co-operate  with  him  and  with  one 
another  in  drawing  men  to  God  in  faith  and  love,  and  transform¬ 
ing  human  society  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  In  it  “  there  is 
neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  circumcision  nor  uncircumcision,  barbar¬ 
ian,  Scythian,  bondman,  freeman ;  but  Christ  is  all  and  in  all  ” 
(Col.  iii.  11).  Thus  all  persons  of  all  races  and  conditions,  all 
institutions  and  organizations,  all  laws  and  usages  of  society,  and 
the  whole  life  of  man  are  to  be  brought  into  harmony  with  the 
universal  law  of  love. 

We  joyfully  trace  through  the  Christian  centuries  the  progress 
of  men  toward  the  realization  of  this  ideal.  Already  war,  when  it 
occurs  between  civilized  nations,  is  conducted  under  rules  abating 
its  ancient  ferocity.  Questions  between  nations  are  settled  peace¬ 
ably  which  in  former  times  would  have  been  the  occasion  of  war. 
The  settlement  of  difficulties  by  arbitration  has  already  been 
attained  in  important  cases;  and  more  and  more  the  people  of 
the  different  nations  are  demanding  it.  Already  looms  up  before 
us  the  idea  of  The  Confederacy  of  Mankind,  uniting  all  nations  in 


260  the  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


co-operation  for  the  noblest  ends.1  And  never  has  there  been  so 
wide-spread  and  earnest  an  expression  by  Christians  of  the  desire 
and  hope  for  the  unity  of  all  Christian  churches.  It  is  all  included 
in  the  ideal  set  forth  by  Christ  as  the  kingdom  of  God.  Now  more 
than  in  any  preceding  age  the  people  are  yearning  for  this  unity 
in  the  political,  the  industrial  and  commercial,  in  the  educational, 
and  in  the  religious  life  of  mankind,  and  are  seeing  and  feeling 
the  real  significance  of  their  daily  prayer,  “  Thy  kingdom  come. 
Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.”  Its  realization  is 
no  longer  to  be  regarded  as  a  visionary  phantom,  but  as  the  reali¬ 
zation  of  the  rational  and  divine  ideal  toward  which  mankind 
under  divine  and  Christian  influences  has  been  tending  through 
the  centuries  and  has  already  made  great  progress.  The  United 
States  of  America  present  a  grander  example  than  any  ever  wit¬ 
nessed  before  of  many  states  united  under  one  government 
guarding  the  rights  and  promoting  the  normal  development  of  its 
citizens.  This  nation,  having  the  advantage  of  separation  by  the 
ocean’s  breadth  from  the  nations  of  the  eastern  continent,  has 
always  been  comparatively  a  peaceful  nation  having  but  a  small 
army  and  navy.  Thus  it  has  the  opportunity,  which,  if  our  people 
and  our  chosen  rulers  are  wise,  it  will  improve,  to  act  a  great  and 
noble  part  in  bringing  about  the  reign  of  universal  peace,  “  when 
they  shall  beat  their  swords  into  ploughshares  and  their  spears 
into  pruning-hooks ;  nation  shall  not  lift  up  sword  against  nation, 
neither  shall  they  learn  war  any  more”  (Isa.  ii.  4).  We  wait  and 
work  and  pray  for  this  great  consummation  of  the  extension  of 
Christ’s  kingdom  over  all  the  earth,  —  for  the  realization  of  the 
glorious  ideal  of  all  nations  and  races  of  men  united  in  the  life 
of  love  and  in  willing  and  righteous  conformity  with  the  eternal 
principles  and  laws  of  Reason,  which  are  the  law  of  God,  seeking 
to  realize  the  highest  possible  ideal  of  perfection  and  well-being 
of  every  individual,  of  every  nation,  of  all  human  society,  all 
co-operating  in  the  universal  kingdom  of  God. 

1  When  the  war-drum  throbs  no  longer  and  the  battle-flags  are  furled, 

In  the  Parliament  of  man,  the  Federation  of  the  world. 


Tennyson. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


THE  LAW  OF  LOVE  AND  RULES  OF  DUTY 

I.  Love  Required  by  Law.  —  In  the  preceding  chapters  of 
Part  IV.  I  have  defined  what  the  love  required  by  the  law  essen¬ 
tially  is.  It  is  necessary  now  to  attend  to  the  complemental 
proposition  that  this  love  is  required  by  law.  The  law  does  not 
present  it  as  merely  beautiful  and  beneficent,  but  also  as  obliga¬ 
tory.  It  does  not  merely  advise  or  suggest  it  as  expedient,  it 
commands  :  “  Thou  shalt  love.”  It  is  law  enforced  by  penalty 
for  disobedience.  It  is  law  in  the  fundamental  principles  of 
human  reason ;  it  is  law  eternal  in  the  absolute  Reason,  and  en¬ 
forced  by  the  absolute  power  of  God ;  it  is  law  incorporated  into 
the  constitution  of  the  universe.  No  good  is  possible  to  persons 
who  in  transgression  of  the  law  are  not  living  lives  of  love.  All 
the  agencies  of  the  universe  work  together  for  good  to  persons 
who  love  God  with  all  the  heart  and  their  neighbor  as  themselves, 
and  for  evil  to  those  who  are  not  living  lives  of  love. 

It  is  the  law  which  determines  what  the  true  good  is.  The  first 
four  fundamental  ideas  of  reason  are  the  True,  the  Right,  the 
Perfect,  and  the  Good.  The  Good  can  be  only  that  which  is 
attained  in  accordance  with  the  truths  and  laws  of  reason,  and  in 
the  realization  of  its  ideals  of  perfection.  No  real  good  is  pos¬ 
sible  in  the  universe  under  the  government  of  God  except  in 
conformity  with  his  eternal  law.  And  so  Christ  sets  forth  the  two 
commandments  on  which  hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets. 

And  it  is  the  law  which  determines  the  methods  by  which  the 
good  may  be  sought  and  can  be  attained.  For  it  is  only  by  action 
accordant  with  the  truth  and  laws  of  reason,  and  realizing  its 
ideals  of  perfection,  that  any  true  well-being  can  be  attained. 
Thus,  at  every  step  in  seeking  the  true  Good,  the  action  which  is 
the  true  expression  of  love  is  determined  by  law. 


262  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


Therefore,  in  determining  practical  duty,  we  are  confronted 
with  the  question,  What  action  in  a  given  case  will  be  the  true 
expression  of  love  to  God  and  man?  And  evidently  if  we  have 
nothing  but  the  real  principle  of  the  law,  the  requirement  of 
universal  love,  we  shall  often  be  at  loss  in  the  determination  of 
what  action  in  that  particular  case  is  duty.  We  need,  therefore, 
to  look  for  principles  or  rules  to  guide  us  in  determining  what  in 
any  specific  case  is  the  action  which  the  law  requires,  and  which 
would  be  the  true  expression  of  love. 

In  a  treatise  on  practical  ethics,  it  would  be  necessary  here  to 
proceed  to  define  and  classify  the  various  virtues  involved  in  love 
to  God  and  man,  and  to  determine  the  proper  distribution  of 
duties  to  different  persons  and  classes  of  persons  which  the  law 
of  love  would  require.  To  do  this  is  not  compatible  with  the 
design  of  this  book.  I  shall  confine  myself  to  indicating  prin¬ 
ciples  determining  the  definition  and  classification  of  duties  or 
virtues  according  to  the  two  aspects  of  love  as  righteousness  and 
benevolence,  and  according  to  the  two  lines  of  trust  and  service 
which  comprehend  all  human  actions  directed  to  persons  as  their 
object ;  and  determining  the  distribution  of  duties  to  different 
persons,  to  God,  to  man  in  his  relations  to  God,  and  to  individuals 
and  classes  of  men.  These  principles  will  be  considered  in  suc¬ 
ceeding  chapters.  In  the  remainder  of  this  chapter  I  propose  to 
consider  how  we  are  to  determine  what  action  in  any  specific  case  is 
required  by  the  law  of  love.  This  will  make  it  necessary  to  examine 
the  rules  of  duty,  the  principles  and  tests  by  which  we  are  to  decide 
questions  of  duty  not  determined  by  specific  rules,  and  the  neces¬ 
sity  and  possibility  of  education  to  moral  and  spiritual  discernment. 

II.  Rules  of  Duty.  —  All  rules  of  duty  are  involved  in  the 
law  of  love,  and  are  applications  of  that  law  regulating  action  in 
specific  cases.  A  rule  simply  answers  the  question  :  What  action 
in  a  specific  class  of  cases  will  be  the  true  expression  of  the  love 
to  God  and  man  which  the  law  requires?  There  are  many  such 
rules  which  we  may  accept  as  fully  established. 

i.  A  remarkable  tabulation  of  such  rules  is  found  in  the  Ten 
Commandments. 

It  is  the  basis  of  God’s  covenant  with  Israel  when  at  Sinai  he 
formally  instituted  the  political  and  ecclesiastical  economy  of 
Israel  under  the  rule  of  God  as  their  theocratic  king. 


THE  LAW  OF  LOVE  AND  RULES  OF  DUTY  263 


In  the  first  table  of  the  commandments,  Jehovah  proclaims 
himself  as  the  God  of  Israel  who  brought  them  out  of  bondage  in 
Egypt ;  as  the  one  only  God,  who  alone  is  to  be  worshiped,  and 
therefore  a  jealous  God,  forbidding  the  worship  of  any  other;  an 
invisible,  spiritual  God,  not  to  be  represented  by  any  image  per¬ 
ceptible  by  sense,  or  by  any  likeness  of  any  form  that  is  in  heaven 
above,  or  in  the  earth,  or  in  the  waters ;  a  righteous  God,  punish¬ 
ing  all  iniquity ;  a  merciful  God  to  all  who  love  him  and  keep 
his  commandments.  The  oath  taken  in  his  name  is  to  be  sacred, 
and  all  should  have  such  reverence  for  him  that  they  will  not  take 
his  name  in  vain.  The  people  must  remember  to  observe  the 
Sabbath  and  keep  it  holy,  an  observance,  as  appears  from  inscrip¬ 
tions  which  have  been  deciphered,  previously  familiar  to  the 
Semitic  peoples.  And  in  connection  with  the  fourth  command¬ 
ment,  Jehovah  distinguishes  himself  from  all  nature-gods,  and  sets 
aside  all  pantheistic  confounding  of  God  with  the  universe  by 
declaring  himself  the  creator  of  heaven  and  earth,  the  sea,  and 
all  that  in  them  is. 

The  second  table  prescribes  duties  to  man.  It  recognizes  a 
rightly-ordered  family  as  of  fundamental  importance  to  the  per¬ 
petuity  of  the  state,  and,  in  recognizing  the  mother  as  entitled  to 
honor  equally  with  the  father,  it  declares  the  true  basis  of  a  rightly- 
ordered  family.  It  forbids  crime  against  life,  against  the  proper 
relations  of  the  sexes,  and  against  property.  It  guards  the  ad¬ 
ministration  of  justice  by  forbidding  false  witness.  In  the  tenth 
commandment,  it  passes  behind  overt  acts  to  the  inward  spirit, 
and  forbids  covetousness.  This,  fairly  interpreted,  forbids  a  life 
of  getting,  possessing,  and  using  for  self  as  the  supreme  end,  a 
life  of  self-will  and  self-seeking  and  self-indulgence  in  the  gratifi¬ 
cation  of  selfish  desires. 

These  two  tables  of  the  law  were  given  by  Jehovah  as  the  basis 
of  his  covenant  with  Israel  as  an  organized  theocratic  state.  If 
they  continue  faithful  in  trusting  and  serving  God  according 
to  these  commandments,  Jehovah  covenants  to  be  their  God, 
to  bless  and  prosper  them  as  a  people,  and  through  them  as  a 
people  —  in  accordance  with  his  covenant  with  Abraham,  renewed 
with  Isaac  and  Jacob  —  to  bring  blessings  upon  all  mankind. 
If  they  forsake  him  and  refuse  obedience  to  his  commandments 
he  will  reject  them. 

That  this  is  the  significance  of  the  transaction  at  Sinai  is 


264  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

evident.  At  the  Burning  Bush,  God  had  renewed  with  Moses 
his  covenant  with  his  people  previously  made  with  Abraham, 
and  had  appropriated  the  name  Jehovah  as  his  Memorial  Name 
in  his  covenant  relations  with  Israel.  In  the  beginning  of  the 
Decalogue  he  announces  himself  by  this  memorial  name,  Jehovah, 
and  gives  its  covenant  significance,  “  thy  God  ”  ;  he  also  refers 
to  the  deliverance  from  the  bondage  in  Egypt  which  he  had 
already  effected  in  accordance  with  his  promise.  It  was  a 
rabbinical  question  on  the  preface  to  the  Decalogue,  why  God 
proclaimed  himself  as  Jehovah,  and  not  rather  as  Elohim,  the 
God  of  heaven  and  earth.  The  answer  is  obvious,  that  he  pro¬ 
claims  himself  by  his  memorial  name  as  the  covenant  God  of 
Israel,  because  in  this  transaction  he  is  formally  renewing  his 
covenant  with  Israel  at  its  organization  into  a  nation.1  A  further 
evidence  is  that  the  pre-exilian  writers  testify  that  the  Ten  Com¬ 
mandments  were  the  basis  of  God’s  covenant  with  Israel.  The 
same  is  the  explicit  testimony  of  Deuteronomy.2  And  from  the 
beginning  onward  the  ark,  in  which  the  two  stone  tables  of  the 
commandments  were  deposited,  was  called  the  ark  of  the  cove¬ 
nant,  and  was  cherished  as  the  symbol  and  seat  of  God’s  protec¬ 
tion  and  mercy,  on  which  the  welfare  of  the  nation  depended.3 
Through  the  entire  Old  Testament  the  prophets  and  other 
writers  speak  of  Jehovah,  thy  God,  who  brought  thee  out  of 


1  Professor  W.  H.  Green,  of  Princeton  Theological  Seminary,  says  of  the 
use  of  “  Elohim  ”  and  “  Jehovah  ”  in  Genesis,  chapters  i.  and  ii. :  “  The  crea¬ 
tive  act  may  be  ascribed  to  Jehovah,  Ex.  xx.  11,  when  the  thought  to  be  con¬ 
veyed  is  that  Israel’s  God,  who  brought  him  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  was 
the  creator  of  the  world ;  but  when  the  announcement  to  be  made  simply 
is  that  the  world  had  a  divine  creator,  Elohim  is  the  proper  term  and  is 
hence  used  in  Genesis,  chapter  i.  and  ii.  1-3,  to  the  end  of  this  first  section. 
Jehovah  is  distinctively  the  God  of  revelation  and  redemption  ;  hence  in 
the  succeeding  section,  Genesis  ii.  4,  and  onward,  where  God’s  grace  to  man 
is  the  prominent  thought,  his  care  and  favor  bestowed  on  him  in  his  origi¬ 
nal  state,  the  primal  promise  of  mercy  after  the  fall,  and  the  goodness 
mingled  with  severity  which  marked  the  whole  ordering  of  his  condition  sub¬ 
sequently,  Jehovah  is  the  only  proper  term.  While  to  make  it  plain  that 
Jehovah  is  not  a  different  or  inferior  deity,  but  that  the  God  of  Grace 
is  one  with  God  the  Creator,  both  names  are  combined,  Jehovah  Elohim, 
throughout  chapters  ii.  and  iii.”  (“The  Pentateuchal  Question,”  Hebraica, 
Jan.  and  April,  18S9,  pp.  179,  1S0.) 

2  Ex.  xxiv.  4-8;  xxxiv.  27,  28;  1  Kings  viii.  9,  21  ;  Deut.  v.  2,  22. 

3  Numb.  x.  33;  Deut.  xxxi.  25,  26;  Josh.  iv.  7  ;  Judg.  xx.  27  ;  1  Sam.  iv. 
3;  2  Sam.  xv.  24;  1  Chron.  xvii.  1  ;  Jer.  iii.  16;  Heb.  ix.  4. 


THE  LAW  OF  LOVE  AND  RULES  OF  DUTY  265 


the  land  of  Egypt,  and  in  various  ways  recognize  the  covenant 
of  God  with  Israel  as  the  basis  of  their  national  life  and  of  their 
religious  faith.  After  Israel  had  entered  the  promised  land 
under  Joshua,  the  mountains  Gerizim  and  Ebal  were  appointed 
as  witnesses  to  this  covenant,  to  the  promise  of  blessing  for  its 
faithful  observance,  and  to  the  curse  pronounced  on  unfaithfulness 
to  it ;  and  great  stones  were  to  be  set  up  on  Ebal  and  plastered, 
and  all  the  words  of  this  law  were  to  be  written  upon  them  “  very 
plainly”  (Deut.  xxvii.  4-8).  And  through  the  whole  history 
of  Israel  the  prophets  present  the  blessing  and  the  curse  together. 
In  every  new  emergency  they  insist  that  if  Israel  remains  faithful 
to  Jehovah  he  will  bless  them ;  if  they  forsake  him  the  curse  will 
come  upon  them.  As  the  Messianic  prophecy  broadens  and 
brightens,  the  same  alternative  is  presented ;  and  in  view  of 
the  responsibility  of  Israel  as  to  receiving  the  promised  Messiah 
and  the  terrific  consequences  of  rejecting  him,  the  time  of  his 
coming  came  to  be  designated  as  the  great  and  dreadful  day 
of  Jehovah.  At  last,  when  the  Messiah  has  come,  and  the  Jews 
reject  him,  weeping  and  yearning  over  them  with  pity,  he  pro¬ 
nounces  their  irrevocable  doom. 

The  Decalogue  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  complete  code  of 
Christian  morality.  This  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that 
conformity  with  it  is  required  as  the  condition  of  God’s  continued 
favor  to  Israel  as  a  people  according  to  his  covenant  with  them 
of  which  it  is  the  basis,  not  as  the  condition  of  justification  to  the 
individual.  It  must  be  inferred  also  from  the  fact  that  it  was 
given  at  this  primitive  period,  preceding  the  centuries  of  pro¬ 
gressive  revelation  in  which  Jehovah  was  training  and  educating 
the  people  in  preparation  for  the  coming  of  the  Messiah,  which 
was  to  be  “when  the  fulness  of  the  time  came”  (Gal.  iv.  4). 
There  is  therefore  no  reason  to  suppose  that,  when  originally 
given,  it  was  intended  to  be  a  complete  code  of  Christian 
ethics. 

That  it  is  not  such  a  code  is  further  evident  from  an  examina¬ 
tion  of  the  Decalogue  itself.  It  does  not  declare  the  law  of  love. 
It  does  not  emphasize  the  inward  life  of  faith  in  God  and  love 
to  God  and  man  as  the  essence  and  life  of  right  character.  In 
the  second  table  four  of  the  six  commandments  forbid  only  overt 
acts.  All  of  the  commandments  except  the  fourth  and  fifth  are 
negative  in  form  ;  they  are  prohibitions,  “  thou  shalt  not.”  But 


266  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

all  virtue  is  primarily  positive,  a  choosing  and  doing  right,  and 
consequently  an  abstaining  from  choosing  and  doing  wrong. 
It  is  a  poor  virtue  which  expends  its  energy  in  holding  itself  back 
from  sin.  It  is  a  poor  boast,  I  never  did  anybody  any  harm. 
The  real  question  is,  What  good  have  you  done ;  and  is  your 
heart  full  of  love  to  God  and  man  so  that  doing  good  is  your 
spontaneous  action  ?  And  as  a  tabulation  of  outward  duties  the 
Decalogue  is  not  complete.  There  is,  for  example,  no  prohibi¬ 
tion  of  drunkenness ;  no  requirement  of  the  prudential  virtues, 
industry,  frugality,  and  the  like  ;  nor  of  the  virtues  of  self-respect, 
the  sense  of  honor,  of  the  noble  and  the  mean ;  nor  of  patriotism 
and  duties  to  the  state. 

Accordingly  we  find  that  the  Ten  Commandments  admit  and 
require  additional  precepts  and  a  further  exposition  of  the  law 
of  love.  They  admit  and  require  further  directions  respecting 
religious  worship  and  instruction.  This  was  afterwards  provided, 
not  as  incompatible  with  the  Ten  Commandments  or  excluded 
by  them,  but  as  a  necessary  carrying  out  of  the  principles  laid 
down  in  the  first  table.  Because  the  Decalogue  recognizes 
Jehovah  as  the  covenant  God  and  king  of  his  people,  it  requires 
continuous  obedience  to  his  will  as  from  age  to  age  it  should  be 
known  to  them.  Because  the  spiritual  kingdom  of  God  was 
inclosed  in  the  theocracy  as  a  chestnut  in  its  bur,  to  protect 
it  in  its  immaturity  and  growth  till  the  Messiah  should  come,  the 
very  conception  of  the  kingdom  carried  in  it  the  promise  and 
prophecy  of  greater  revelations  of  God  and  richer  results  of  his 
grace  in  all  the  future.  From  the  first  promise,  in  the  opening 
of  Genesis,  of  deliverance  for  man  after  he  had  sinned  to  come 
through  the  seed  of  the  woman,  from  the  promise  to  Abraham, 
“  In  thy  seed  shall  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  be  blessed,” 
the  kingdom  was  ever  looking  forward  to  surpass  itself  and  to 
insure  a  future  better  than  the  past.  Hence  the  Decalogue  does 
not  stand  as  a  finality,  a  dead  wall  barring  all  progress  in  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  in  the  intelligent  appreciation  of  the 
moral  and  spiritual  life.  It  is  rather  the  basis  of  that  political 
and  ecclesiastical  organization  in  which,  according  to  God’s 
covenant,  his  kingdom  at  that  time  and  for  centuries  after  was 
to  exist  and  grow.  It  is  itself  the  vital  germ  of  the  moral  and 
spiritual  growth  of  man  and  of  the  revelation  of  God  redeeming 
man  from  sin,  which  was  to  blossom  out  in  Christ  the  Saviour 


THE  LAW  OF  LOVE  AND  RULES  OF  DUTY  2 67 


of  the  world  and  to  fructify  in  the  new  covenant  of  God’s  re¬ 
deeming  love. 

The  Ten  Commandments,  therefore,  ought  not  to  be  presented 
as  the  full  exposition  of  Christian  ethics.  When  a  lawyer  asked 
Jesus,  Which  is  the  great  commandment  of  the  law?  Jesus  in 
reply  did  not  specify  any  commandment  of  the  Decalogue  nor 
make  any  reference  to  it.  The  first  and  great  commandment 
which  he  cited  is  in  Deuteronomy,  vi.  5  ;  and  the  second,  like 
unto  it,  is  in  Leviticus,  xix.  18.  The  attempt  to  present  the 
Decalogue  as  comprehending  all  Christian  virtues  has  led  to 
strained  interpretations  in  themselves  of  unhealthy  moral  influ¬ 
ence,  and  has  laid  Christian  ethics  open  to  the  objections  of 
skeptics. 

But  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  Decalogue  is  not  a  com¬ 
plete  code  of  Christian  ethics  detracts  nothing  from  our  admira¬ 
tion  of  the  wonderful  character  of  the  code  considered  in  its  true 
significance,  in  the  historical  conditions  under  which  it  was  given, 
and  the  influence  which  from  that  day  to  this  it  has  exerted  on 
the  ethical  ideas  and  the  spiritual  and  moral  progress  of  mankind. 
Thus  considered,  it  can  hardly  be  accounted  for  except  as  an 
actual  revelation  of  God.  It  is  remarkable  for  its  comprehensive 
classification  of  duties  to  God  and  to  men.  It  is  a  unique  and 
wonderful  transaction,  especially  in  view  of  its  early  date,  as  the 
organization  of  a  nation  on  the  basis  of  faith  in  the  one  only  spir¬ 
itual  and  personal  God  and  of  a  covenant  of  righteousness  with 
him.  It  is  an  epoch  in  the  progress  of  civilization  as  the  first 
formal  recognition  of  the  principle,  true  for  all  time,  that  rectitude 
of  character  and  the  practice  of  virtue  in  faith  in,  and  allegiance 
to,  the  one  living  and  true  God  are  the  only  basis  of  prosperity  and 
perpetuity  for  a  nation  as  well  as  for  the  right  life  and  true  well¬ 
being  of  the  individual.  It  is  especially  remarkable  for  its  repre¬ 
sentation  of  God,  who  in  it  reveals  himself  to  his  people  as  an 
invisible,  personal  Spirit,  in  distinction  from  a  nature-God ;  as  a 
righteous  God,  in  distinction  from  a  God  of  mere  superior  power ; 
as  a  God  of  love  and  mercy,  in  distinction  from  God  only  terrible  ; 
as  God  dwelling  among  men,  entering  into  covenant  with  them, 
seeking  to  deliver  them  from  sin  and  to  bring  them  into  harmony 
and  trustful  and  loving  union  with  himself ;  as  God  demanding  of 
his  people  conformity  with  his  spiritual  character  as  a  righteous, 
benevolent,  and  forgiving  God.  The  giving  of  the  Command- 


268  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


ments  at  Sinai  was  an  epoch  in  God’s  historical  action  among  men 
redeeming  them  from  sin  and  establishing  on  earth  his  kingdom 
of  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost ;  an  epoch 
in  God’s  redemptive  action  in  human  history  progressively  reveal¬ 
ing  himself  as  their  God,  seeking  them  before  they  seek  him  to 
draw  them  from  sin  into  alliance  and  affinity  with  himself ;  ful¬ 
filling  his  covenant  with  Abraham  and  its  great  promise,  which 
Paul  declares  to  be  for  all  generations  of  men,  “  We,  brethren,  as 
Isaac  was,  are  children  of  promise  ”  (Gal.  iv.  28)  ;  preparing  for 
the  coming  of  Christ,  “  bringing  in  everlasting  righteousness  ” 
(Dan.  ix.  24),  and  advancing  through  its  preparatory  stages  the 
kingdom  of  God  destined  to  become  spiritual,  universal,  and 
everlasting.1 

1  Ewald  says:  “The  ancient  people  of  Israel  had  times  in  which  it 
appeared  disposed  to  prosecute  similar  aims  to  those  pursued  by  other 
nations.  Under  David  and  Solomon  it  laid  a  firm  basis  for  external  domin¬ 
ion,  out  of  which  an  Assyrian  or  a  Roman  empire  might  perhaps  have 
grown ;  in  the  vigor  of  its  temporal  power  it  attempted  to  rival  the  Phoeni¬ 
cians  in  commerce  and  navigation ;  and  by  its  own  energies  it  advanced 
quite  as  far  as  the  Greeks  before  Socrates  toward  producing  an  independent 
science  and  philosophy.  But  all  such  aims,  by  which  other  nations  of  anti¬ 
quity  became  great,  in  this  people  only  started  up  to  yield  at  once  to  the 
pursuit  of  another  aim,  which  it  had  beheld  so  distinctly  from  the  com¬ 
mencement  of  its  historical  consciousness,  that  permanently  to  abandon  it 
was  impossible  ;  which,  therefore,  after  every  momentary  cessation,  it  always 
resumed  with  fresh  pertinacity.  This  aim  was  Perfect  Religion,  a  good 
which  all  aspiring  nations  of  antiquity  made  a  commencement  and  attempt 
to  attain  ;  which  some,  the  Indians  and  Persians  for  example,  really  labored 
to  achieve  with  admirable  devotion  of  noble  energies  ;  but  which  this  people 
alone  clearly  discerned  from  the  beginning,  and  then  pursued  for  many  cen¬ 
turies  through  all  difficulties,  and  with  the  utmost  firmness  and  consistency, 
until  they  attained  it,  so  far  as  among  men  and  in  ancient  times  attainment 
was  possible.  The  beginning  and  end  of  the  history  of  this  people  turn  on 
this  one  high  aim  ;  and  the  manifold  changes  and  even  confusions  and  per¬ 
versities  which  manifest  themselves  in  the  long  course  of  the  threads  of  this 
history,  always  ultimately  tend  to  the  solution  of  this  great  problem,  which 
the  human  mind  was  to  work  out  here.  The  aim  was  lofty  enough  to  con¬ 
centrate  the  highest  efforts  of  a  whole  people  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years,  and  to  be  reached  at  length  as  the  prize  of  the  noblest  struggles.  And 
as,  however  the  mode  of  pursuit  might  vary,  it  was  this  single  object  which 
was  always  pursued,  till  finally  attained  only  with  the  political  death  of  the 
nation,  there  is  hardly  any  history  of  equal  compass  which  possesses  in  all 
its  phases  and  variations  so  much  intrinsic  unity,  and  is  so  closely  bound  to 
a  single  thought  pertinaciously  held,  but  always  developing  itself  to  higher 
purity.  The  history  of  this  ancient  people  is  in  reality  the  history  of  the 
growth  of  true  religion,  rising  through  all  stages  to  perfection  ;  pressing  on 


THE  LAW  OF  LOVE  AND  RULES  OF  DUTY  269 


An  answer  can  now  be  intelligently  given  to  the  question 
whether  the  Ten  Commandments  are  binding  on  all  men  in  all 
ages.  So  far  as  they  were  the  basis  of  the  political  and  ecclesi¬ 
astical  organization,  they  pass  away  at  the  dissolution  of  the 
organization.  But  God  here  instituted  a  state  on  the  eternal 
principles  of  righteousness ;  a  state  involving  for  the  time  being 

1 

the  spiritual  kingdom  of  God.  So  far  as  the  Decalogue  declares 
these  eternal  principles,  it  is  for  all  time  and  binding  on  all  men. 
It  is  binding,  not  because  God  made  it  the  basis  of  the  national  life 
of  Israel,  but  because  it  expresses  eternal  principles  of  righteous¬ 
ness.  The  principle  even  of  the  fourth  commandment  continues, 
as  consecrating  one  day  of  the  week  as  a  day  of  rest  and  worship. 
And  fitly  that  day  of  rest  should  be  the  Lord’s  day,  after  Jehovah, 
the  covenant  God  of  Israel,  has  come  in  Christ  reconciling  the 
world  unto  himself,  after  the  Saviour  has  risen  from  the  dead  on 
the  first  day  of  the  week,  and  his  name  as  redeemer  has  become 
the  name  above  every  name,  the  true  memorial  name  commemo¬ 
rating  the  new  covenant  in  his  blood  which  is  shed  for  many  for 
the  remission  of  sins. 

2.  Besides  the  Ten  Commandments  we  find  in  the  Bible  other 
teachings  defining  principles  and  rules  of  duty  in  application  of 
the  law  of  love. 

We  have  seen  that  the  law  of  love  requires  further  exposition 
as  to  its  applications  than  is  found  in  the  Decalogue.  Accord¬ 
ingly,  in  the  Pentateuch  itself,  in  the  writings  of  the  prophets  and 

through  all  conflicts  to  the  highest  victory,  and  finally  revealing  itself  in  full 
glory  and  power,  in  order  to  spread  irresistibly  from  this  centre,  never  again 
to  be  lost,  but  to  become  the  eternal  possession  and  blessing  of  all  nations. 

.  .  .  Thus  the  history  of  this  people  stretches  from  the  very  commencement 
of  the  scarcely  discernible  dawn  of  antiquity,  shares  the  full  noonday  beam 
which  lights  up  the  history  of  a  few  of  the  most  prominent  ancient  nations, 
and  ceases  only  with  the  termination  of  the  long  day  of  ancient  history,  to 
give  place  to  the  coming  of  a  new  day  of  the  world’s  history.  The  history 
of  no  other  ancient  people  is,  therefore,  with  all  its  internal  movements,  so 
closely  interwoven  with  the  loftiest  spiritual  endeavors  of  other  highly  civil¬ 
ized  nations  or  so  necessarily  passes  into  universal  history;  or,  while  pre¬ 
serving  its  internal  unity  and  consistency,  undergoes  such  variety  and  such 
complete  alteration  of  external  form.  No  nation  has  so  significantly  kept 
on  its  course  through  the  three  vast  epochs  of  the  past,  radiating  out  ever, 
in  the  course  of  two  thousand  years,  from  the  smallest  and  most  insignifi¬ 
cant  into  ever  widening  circles,  and  closing  the  day  of  antiquity  with  a  sun¬ 
set  which  is  itself  the  earnest  of  the  upspringing  of  a  new  and  still  loftier 
life.”  (History  of  Israel,  Introd.,  sect.  i. ;  Trans.,  vol.  i.  pp.  4-7.) 


2JO  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


other  teachers  of  Israel,  we  find  many  principles  and  precepts 
which  stand  for  all  time  as  rules  of  duty.  And  the  characters, 
good  or  bad,  delineated  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  historical 
actions  and  their  issues  narrated,  reveal  what  characters  and 
actions  God  approves  and  what  he  disapproves,  and  so  help  us 
in  determining  what  is  duty. 

Further  instruction  is  given  as  to  the  applications  of  the  law  in 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  the  other  teachings  of  Christ,  as 
well  as  by  his  example. 

A  further  exposition  of  the  law  of  love  in  its  specific  applications 
is  found  in  the  teachings  of  Christ’s  apostles  in  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment.  Before  his  death  Jesus  promised  his  disciples  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  should  come  after  his  departure  and  “  teach  you  all 
things,  and  bring  to  your  remembrance  all  that  I  have  said  unto 
you.”  He  told  them,  “  I  have  yet  many  things  to  say  unto  you, 
but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now.  Howbeit,  when  he,  the  Spirit  of 
truth  is  come,  he  shall  guide  you  into  all  the  truth.”  Thus  he 
promised  that  after  his  departure  the  Spirit  should  unfold  to  them 
the  significance  of  his  life  and  death,  so  far  as  they  were  not  pre¬ 
pared  to  understand  while  he  was  living  with  them.  Hence,  in 
the  writings  of  the  New  Testament  we  find  other  principles  and 
rules  still  further  unfolding  the  applications  of  the  law  of  love, 
and  defining  the  specific  duties  of  a  Christian. 

3.  Principles  and  rules  as  to  duty  in  specific  classes  of  cases 
have  been  established  in  the  course  of  history  by  human  experi¬ 
ence  and  observation  of  the  good  or  evil  issue  of  particular  lines 
of  conduct,  and  by  the  common  consent  of  the  conscience  of  man. 
In  a  similar  manner,  principles  and  rules  of  conduct  become  estab¬ 
lished  in  a  particular  nation,  or  in  a  group  of  nations,  as  among 
the  western  as  distinguished  from  the  oriental  nations,  the  Chris¬ 
tian  nations  as  distinguished  from  the  non-Christian,  the  modern 
as  distinguished  from  the  ancient,  the  more  advanced  as  distin¬ 
guished  from  those  less  advanced.  Here  belong  the  statutes 
enacted  by  the  state,  the  established  principles  of  jurisprudence, 
and  the  principles  of  common  law  acknowledged  in  the  courts  of 
any  nation.  These  principles  and  rules  are  not  always  a  finality ; 
they  may  be  changed  with  changing  conditions,  corrected  and 
improved  with  advancing  knowledge  and  moral  discernment. 
But  they  are  necessary  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  to  enable 
one  to  determine  in  any  particular  case  what  he  ought  to  do. 


THE  LAW  OF  LOVE  AND  RULES  OF  DUTY  27 1 


All  effective  action  would  be  stopped,  and  the  whole  significance 
of  life  would  be  expressed  in  an  interrogation  point,  if  in  every 
transaction  one  must  go  behind  all  rules  and  usages  to  determine 
the  reasons  on  which  they  rest,  and  how  they  can  be  improved 
and  made  perfect.  The  same  is  true  of  the  conventional  arrange¬ 
ments  of  business  and  of  politeness.  They  may  become  burden¬ 
some  through  minute  and  excessive  ramification,  but  they  are  of 
practical  importance  ;  the  former,  though  ridiculed  as  red  tape, 
are  important  to  insure  carefulness  and  correctness,  the  latter  to 
protect  society  from  offensive  rudeness  and  the  individual  from 
embarrassment  in  determining  what  action  will  be  agreeable  to  the 
company  in  which  he  is. 

III.  Private  Judgment.  —  It  is  impossible  to  determine  right 
action  in  every  case  by  rules  of  duty.  There  will  be  many  ques¬ 
tions  as  to  what  ought  to  be  done  in  specific  cases  to  which  no 
established  rule  is  applicable.  And  even  in  cases  to  which  rules  are 
applicable,  there  will  often  be  peculiarities,  making  it  difficult  to 
determine  the  precise  course  of  action  which  the  rule  would  require. 
If  all  established  rules  of  duty  were  collected,  formulated,  and  clas¬ 
sified,  and  action  in  conformity  with  each  designated  by  name  as 
a  particular  virtue,  as  in  a  system  of  practical  ethics,  still  in  many 
specific  cases  the  precise  action  required  by  the  law  of  love  would 
be  undetermined.  It  is  here  that  “  cases  of  conscience,”  ques¬ 
tions  of  casuistry,  arise,  the  precise  determination  of  which  largely 
occupied  the  attention  of  moralists  in  former  times ;  of  this 
Jeremy  Taylor’s  *•'  Ductor  Dubitantium  ”  is  a  favorable  example.  Of 
these  one  valuable  result  has  been  the  demonstration  that  it  is 
impossible  to  determine  by  rules  in  every  case  of  conscience  what 
is  the  action  which  the  law  of  love  requires.  There  is  always  a 
wide  range  for  the  conscience  of  a  person  to  determine  according 
to  his  best  judgment  what  in  particular  cases  his  duty  is. 

1.  In  these  cases  an  important  principle  in  determining  the 
distribution  of  one’s  duty  to  particular  persons  or  classes  of  per¬ 
sons  is,  that  the  duty  owed  is  determined  by  his  peculiar  relations 
to  the  person  or  persons  in  the  moral  system.  True  ethics  rests 
on  the  realities  of  the  universe,  and  all  particular  duties  involved 
in  it  are  accordant  with  those  realities.  If  we  would  decide  what 
particular  service  the  law  of  love  requires  us  to  render  to  particu¬ 
lar  persons,  we  must  ascertain  what  are  our  actual  relations  to 


272  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


those  persons  in  the  moral  system.  I  say  in  the  moral  system, 
for  our  relations  are  not  solely  to  one  person  or  group  of  persons. 
We  are*  all  related  to  God,  and  by  this  common  relation  of  all  to 
him  the  unity  of  the  moral  system  is  constituted,  and  our  relations 
ramify  in  many  directions  and  bind  us  to  our  fellowmen  in  this 
moral  system.  In  distributing  our  duties  to  individuals,  all  these 
relations  must  be  taken  into  account,  and  our  duty  to  any  par¬ 
ticular  person  must  be  determined  in  view  of  our  actual  relations 
to  him  in  the  moral  system.  Because  God  is  the  absolute  Being, 
perfect  in  wisdom  and  love,  the  creator  and  sustainer  of  all  things, 
physical  and  spiritual,  we  owe  to  him  duties  which  we  cannot  owe 
to  any  created  and  finite  being.  And  the  same  principle  holds 
good  when  one  is  determining  the  distribution  of  his  duties  to 
particular  men  or  communities.  A  person’s  obligation  to  love  his 
neighbor  as  himself  is  grounded  on  the  fact  of  their  common 
relations  to  God,  and  therefore  to  one  another  in  the  moral  sys¬ 
tem.  And  all  these  relations  must  be  taken  into  account  in  de¬ 
termining  one’s  duty  to  a  particular  person  or  community.  For 
example,  the  question  of  duty  cannot  be  determined  merely  by 
numbers  or  the  greatness  of  the  sphere  of  work.  Because  China 
has  more  population  than  this  country,  it  does  not  follow  that  it 
is  my  duty  to  devote  my  life  to  Christian  work  in  China.  Because 
my  neighbor’s  family  is  larger  than  mine,  it  does  not  make  it  my 
duty  to  devote  more  of  my  labor  to  serving  his  family  than  my 
own.  And  the  question  of  duty  cannot  be  determined  by  the 
mere  fact  of  greater  need.  The  old  nurse  in  “  Faith  Gartney’s 
Girlhood  ”  always  ate  the  drumstick  when  a  turkey  was  served 
for  dinner.  She  reasoned  that  somebody  must  eat  it,  and  there 
were  always  enough  to  eat  the  nicer  parts,  therefore  she  would 
eat  the  drumstick.  This  may  have  been  a  real  manifestation  of 
Christian  love.  It  may  be  good  reasoning  that  work  is  needed 
in  a  particular  field ;  enough  are  ready  to  work  in  the  more  invit¬ 
ing  spheres ;  I  will  devote  myself  to  this.  So  Father  Damien 
and  several  others  have  devoted  themselves  to  the  care  of  the 
lepers  in  Molokai.  So  a  highly  cultivated  and  accomplished 
woman  was  invited  to  be  the  principal  of  a  seminary  in  this  coun¬ 
try,  and  at  the  same  time  to  make  the  untried  experiment  of 
establishing  a  similar  school  in  South  Africa.  She  accepted  the 
latter,  unwisely,  as  many  of  her  friends  thought.  But  wisdom  is 
justified  by  her  children,  and  the  great  work  accomplished  has 


THE  LAW  OF  LOVE  AND  RULES  OF  DUTY  273 


justified  her  decision.  Still  the  mere  facts  of  a  greater  sphere 
and  greater  need  do  not  of  themselves  determine  what  is  duty. 
A  person  is  many-sided,  and  is  in  contact  with  his  environment 
at  many  points.  But  he  is  limited,  and  can  work  effectively  only 
as  he  concentrates  his  energies  in  a  definite  direction  and  acts  on 
society  at  definite  points.  He  owes  peculiar  duties  to  himself,  his 
own  family,  his  own  community  and  country.  In  doing  his  special 
work  he  accepts  special  trusts  involving  special  duties.  The  cap¬ 
tain  of  a  ship  may  not  say  in  time  of  danger,  Life  is  as  sweet  to 
me  as  to  another,  and  use  his  superior  skill  and  opportunity  to 
escape  the  first  of  all  from  the  ship.  He  must  be  faithful  to  his 
trust.  A  parent  may  owe  duties  to  an  idiot  child,  or  a  child  to  a 
senile  parent,  which  he  may  not  neglect  for  the  most  important 
field  of  labor.  Persons  have  also  peculiar  talents  and  acquire¬ 
ments  which  adapt  them  to  peculiar  lines  of  work.  There  must 
be  division  of  labor.  And  by  this  concentration  of  each  on  some 
particular  line  of  service  and  on  particular  persons  and  interests 
specially  related  to  him,  the  well-being  of  society  is  best  pro¬ 
moted.  Hence  the  time  spent  in  the  necessary  preparation  for  a 
chosen  line  of  work  is  as  really  service  to  man,  in  accordance  with 
the  law  of  love,  as  is  afterwards  the  effective  doing  of  the  work. 
Therefore,  in  deciding  what  service  he  owes  to  persons,  or  classes 
of  persons,  one  must  consider  what  are  his  peculiar  relations  to 
those  persons  and  to  others  in  the  moral  system  under  the  gov¬ 
ernment  of  God. 

2.  The  Golden  Rule  presents  a  test  by  which  to  determine 
whether  an  action  proposed  to  be  done  to  another  will  be  a  real 
expression  of  the  love  required  in  the  law.  The  measure  of  love 
to  one’s  neighbor  in  the  second  great  commandment  is  “  as  thy¬ 
self.”  The  significance  of  this  measure  or  standard  is  unfolded 
by  Jesus  in  the  Golden  Rule:  “All  things,  therefore,  whatsoever 
ye  would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  even  so  do  ye  also  to  them  ” 
(Matth.  vii.  12).  This  is  not  to  be  understood  as  declaring  that 
the  selfish  desire  of  one  person  is  the  law  of  duty  to  another. 
When  a  millionaire  meets  a  beggar  and  thinks,  If  I  were  that 
beggar  and  he  were  as  rich  as  I,  I  should  wish  that  he  would 
give  me  all  his  riches,  —  it  does  not  follow  that  it  would  be  the  duty 
of  the  millionaire  to  give  all  his  property  to  the  beggar.  By  what 
action  he  should  express  his  love  to  the  beggar  would  be  deter¬ 
mined,  as  already  shown,  by  the  principles,  laws,  ideals,  and  ends 
vol.  11.  — 18 


274  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


of  reason,  by  the  established  rules  of  duty,  and  by  the  relation  of 
the  two  persons  to  each  other  and  to  the  moral  system  under  the 
government  of  God.  Jesus,  introducing  the  Golden  Rule  by  the 
word  therefore ,  presents  it  as  an  inference  from  what  he  had  been 
saying  of  the  graciousness  of  God  and  his  fatherly  readiness  to 
give  of  his  fulness  in  answer  to  the  prayers  of  his  children ;  and 
throughout  the  discourse  he  speaks  of  the  significance  of  the  law 
of  his  kingdom  in  its  breadth  and  depth,  requiring  not  only  the 
outward  act,  but  also  the  inmost  spirit  and  character  to  be  right. 
He  cannot  have  intended  by  the  Golden  Rule  to  set  all  this  aside 
and  to  declare  that  the  selfish  desire  of  any  other  person  is  the 
measure  of  one’s  duty  in  fulfilling  the  law  of  love.  So  far  as  the 
Golden  Rule  is  a  statement  of  the  law  of  love  to  man  from  a 
special  point  of  view,  it  must  require  love  to  our  neighbor  regu¬ 
lated  by  law.  Kant’s  statement  of  it  is  in  accordance  with  this  : 
“  So  act  as  if  the  maxim  of  thy  action  were  through  thy  will  to 
become  a  universal  law.  ...  So  act  as  to  use  humanity,  whether 
in  thine  own  person  or  in  that  of  another,  never  merely  as  a 
means  but  always  as  an  end.”  1  The  peculiar  form  of  the  state¬ 
ment  in  the  Golden  Rule  of  the  law  of  love  to  man  gives  us  a 
test  by  which  we  may  determine  what  action  toward  a  person,  in 
any  given  case,  would  be  the  right  application  of  the  law  of  love. 
It  says,  Put  yourself  in  his  place  and  imagine  what,  if  you  were 
he,  you  would  think  in  this  case  was  due  to  yourself.  Thus  if 
one  is  seeking  an  unfair  advantage  of  his  neighbor  he  will  see  the 
unfairness  and  selfishness  of  the  proposed  action.  The  Golden 
Rule  is  an  Ithuriel’s  spear,  whose  touch  compels  selfishness  to 
drop  its  disguises  and  reveal  itself  in  its  true  form. 

After  declaring  the  Golden  Rule,  Jesus  immediately  added,  as 
reported  by  Luke,  some  further  explanations  which  Matthew 
omits:  “And  if  ye  love  them  that  love  you,  what  thank  have 
you?  for  even  sinners  love  those  that  love  them.  And  if  ye  do 
good  to  them  who  do  good  to  you,  what  thank  have  ye?  for  even 
sinners  do  the  same.  .  .  .  But  love  your  - enemies  and  do  them 
good,  .  .  .  never  despairing ;  and  your  reward  shall  be  great 
and  ye  shall  be  sons  of  the  Most  High ;  for  he  is  kind  toward 
the  unthankful  and  evil.  Be  ye  merciful,  even  as  your  Father  is 
merciful”  (vi.  31-36).  Your  love  is  to  be  disinterested  and 

1  “  Grundlegung  zur  Metaphysik  der  Sitten,”  herausgegeben  von  Rosen- 
kranz,  pp.  47,  57. 


THE  LAW  OF  LOVE  AND  RULES  OF  DUTY  275 


self-sacrificing;  your  service  is  to  be  rendered  for  your  neigh¬ 
bor’s  good,  not  to  gain  a  return  of  the  favor.  Hence  you  are  to 
render  the  service  of  love  even  to  enemies,  even  to  those  who 
use  you  despitefully  and  persecute  you.  You  are  to  be  merciful 
to  the  sinful,  even  as  God  is,  who  is  your  Father  though  you  are 
sinners ;  and,  as  the  apostles  could  afterwards  add,  even  as 
Christ,  while  you  were  yet  enemies,  died  for  you  and  reconciled 
you  to  God.  Hence  it  is  a  test  of  the  right  application  of  the 
law  of  love  when  one  can  interest  himself  in  those  who  are  not 
attractive  to  him,  to  enlighten  and  save  them,  as  Christ  came  to 
seek  and  save  lost  sinners.  A  person  of  culture  seeks  the  society 
of  cultivated  persons,  because  he  finds  in  it  enjoyment  and  im¬ 
provement, —  not  for  their  good  but  for  his  own,  seeking  for  some¬ 
thing  again.  A  wicked  person  seeks  the  society  of  the  wicked 
because  he  finds  pleasure  in  it  and  help  in  his  wicked  designs, 
being  in  sympathy  with  them  in  their  wickedness.  But  it  is  a 
test  of  Christian  love  when  one  is  interested  in  persons  with 
whose  character  and  plans  he  is  not  in  sympathy,  who  are  un¬ 
cultivated,  vicious,  disagreeable,  and  repulsive,  seeking  the  sinful 
to  save  them  from  their  sins,  seeking  the  spiritually  impoverished 
to  enrich  them  with  spiritual  gifts,  to  lift  them  to  a  higher  plane 
of  life,  character,  and  blessedness. 

Jesus  in  dealing  with  men  touched  them  on  that  trait  of  char¬ 
acter  which  was  the  strongest  in  binding  them  in  sin  and  holding 
them  away  from  him.  When  he  required  the  young  ruler  to  sell 
that  he  had  and  give  to  the  poor,  he  did  not  declare  it  as  a  uni¬ 
versal  rule  ;  he  touched  his  ruling  passion,  the  love  of  property, 
and  thus  revealed  to  him  his  actual  separation  from  the  Christ 
and  his  kingdom,  and  the  selfishness  which  caused  it  and  de¬ 
barred  him  from  inheriting  eternal  life.  But  when  he  spoke  to 
Pharisees  he  was  not  wont  to  speak  of  the  love  of  property ;  but 
he  laid  his  finger  on  their  self-righteousness,  their  legalism,  form¬ 
alism,  literalism,  and  traditionalism,  and  condemned  even  their 
careful  paying  of  tithes  as  a  mere  punctiliousness  lacking  true 
faith  and  love  ;  and  in  these  characteristics  he  revealed,  in  their 
legal  and  religious  observances  themselves,  their  self-sufficiency, 
self-righteousness,  self-will,  and  self-seeking,  which  separated 
them  from  the  kingdom  of  God,  in  which  they  supposed  them¬ 
selves  above  all  others  to  have  inherent  right.  A  minister  of  the 
gospel  at  the  present  day  is  seldom  drawn  away  from  interest  in 


276  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


his  appropriate  work  by  the  love  of  money.  But  interest  in  liter¬ 
ary  pursuits  and  intellectual  investigations  may  draw  him  away 
from  interest  in  the  practical  life  of  men  and  from  his  appro¬ 
priate  work  in  the  care  of  souls,  in  bringing  sinners  to  repent¬ 
ance,  and  elevating  the  people  around  him  to  nobler  characters 
and  a  higher  plane  of  life. 

But  if  one  would  test  the  reality  of  his  love  to  God  and  men 
and  the  correctness  of  his  application  of  the  law  of  love  in  deter¬ 
mining  the  action  due  in  specific  cases,  it  should  be  by  real  and 
not  by  imaginary  tests,  —  by  tests  of  the  kind  which  we  have  been 
considering.  One  may  ask  himself  whether  for  Christ’s  sake  he 
has  refrained  from  deceiving  a  customer  in  order  to  get  a  larger 
price  on  a  sale  of  goods  ;  or  has  been  faithful  to  every  trust,  great 
or  small ;  or  has  done  his  best  in  every  piece  of  work  which  he 
has  engaged  to  do ;  or  has  not  wrongfully  provoked  his  child  to 
wrath ;  or  has  spoken  and  acted  in  accordance  with  truth ; 
or  has  willingly  lent  a  hand  to  help  in  time  of  need  so  far  as  he 
has  had  fit  opportunity  and  could  wisely  do  it.  Any  one  of  ques¬ 
tions  like  these  is  of  more  practical  value  to  a  Christian  as  a  test 
than  any  imaginary  test,  —  such  as  asking  himself  whether  he  could 
die  in  peace,  or  could  in  time  of  persecution  be  a  martyr  for  the 
truth,  or  would  be  willing  to  suffer  eternally  in  hell  if  it  should  be 
for  the  glory  of  God. 

IV.  Development  and  Education  of  Conscience.  —  The  pos¬ 
sibility  and  necessity  of  the  development  and  education  of  the 
conscience  are  known  from  observed  facts  in  the  progress  of 
man  from  infancy  to  maturity  and  from  savagery  to  civilization. 
Man  is  educated  and  developed  to  increased  spontaneity  of  moral 
action  under  the  inspiration  of  love  anticipating  both  the  fear  of 
punishment  and  the  sense  of  duty  ;  to  increased  delicacy  of  moral 
sensibility ;  to  increased  nicety  and  clearness  of  moral  and  spirit¬ 
ual  discernment ;  and  to  increased  moral  and  spiritual  strength 
and  efficiency.  On  the  other  hand,  while  advancing  from  infancy 
to  maturity,  from  savagery  to  civilization,  man  by  persistent 
wickedness  may  deaden  conscience  into  insensibility,  “  having 
his  conscience  seared  as  with  a  hot  iron  ”  ;  he  may  lose  clearness 
of  moral  discernment  so  that  he  calls  evil  good  and  good  evil ; 
and  he  may  develop  his  moral  strength  and  efficiency  only  to 
persistence  and  power  in  doing  evil. 


THE  LAW  OF  LOVE  AND  RULES  OF  DUTY  277 


For  the  right  education  and  development  of  conscience  the 
prime  requisite  is  constant  and  faithful  obedience  to  its  com¬ 
mands.  This  may  be  supplemented  by  direct  instruction  in  the 
education  of  children  and  of  the  inferior  races,  by  the  dissemina¬ 
tion  of  right  moral  principles  from  the  pulpit,  the  platform,  and 
the  press,  and  by  all  agencies  by  which  public  opinion  may  be 
wisely  and  rightly  formed.  This  education  is  promoted  also  by 
familiarity  with  people  of  high  moral  excellence  and  with  the 
lives  of  men  and  women  distinguished  for  moral  beauty,  great¬ 
ness,  and  heroism,  and  by  communion  with  Christ,  living  by  faith 
in  him  and  breathing  his  moral  atmosphere.  And  here,  as  in 
every  sphere  of  human  life  and  action,  man  can  realize  his  ideal 
only  by  faith  in  God  and  in  union  with  him  through  the  indwell¬ 
ing  Holy  Spirit.  When  a  sinner  awakes  to  the  consciousness 
of  God  who  besets  him  behind  and  before  and  lays  his  hand  upon 
bim,  when  he  thus  becomes  aware  of  his  own  spiritual  environment 
and  willingly  receives  the  divine  influence  which  encompasses 
him,  he  becomes  a  new  man,  he  gains  a  new  power  of  spiritual 
and  moral  insight  and  discernment,  so  that  the  spiritual  world 
becomes  as  real  to  him  as  the  physical,  he  sees  the  things  that 
are  not  seen,  things  which  the  natural  man  knoweth  not  but 
which  are  spiritually  discerned.  And  without  this  union  with 
God  no  man  can  attain  his  clearest  moral  and  spiritual  discern¬ 
ment  and  his  fullest  moral  and  spiritual  knowledge,  nor  realize  his 
own  normal  condition  and  perfection. 

The  necessity  of  moral  and  spiritual  education  and  develop¬ 
ment  is  seen  also  in  the  fact  that  there  is  so  large  a  sphere  for 
private  judgment  in  determining  in  specific  cases  what  the  law 
requires. 

This  use  of  private  judgment  is  itself  an  important  factor  in 
moral  and  spiritual  education  and  development.  Because  a  person 
is  obliged  to  proceed  cautiously  in  determining  questions  of  duty, 
“  sounding  on  his  dim  and  perilous  way,”  he  must  be  constantly 
recurring  to  the  law  of  love  and  the  principles  implied  in  it, 
studying  as  a  chart  the  established  rules  of  action,  and  prayer¬ 
fully  communing  with  God  and  seeking  the  light  and  guidance  of 
his  indwelling  Spirit,  that  he  may  know  in  cases  continually  aris¬ 
ing,  what  the  true  application  of  the  law  of  love  would  be.  If 
one  were  provided  with  a  sort  of  Gyges’  ring,  which,  instead  of 
making  him  invisible  whenever  he  would,  would  pinch  his  finger 


2yS  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


when  he  began  to  incline  to  do  wrong  and  would  increase  the 
painful  pressure  until  he  abandoned  the  wrong  course  of  action  for 
the  right,  all  this  careful  recurrence  to  principles  and  rules,  all 
this  prayerful  looking  to  God  for  guidance,  would  cease.  Morality 
would  become  a  mechanical  and  piecemeal  doing  of  outward 
acts  and  duties,  not  the  spontaneous  service  of  God  and  man  in 
love.  And  this  would  be  the  result  of  attempting  to  regulate  all 
action  by  rules. 

The  evil  practical  tendencies  and  results  of  such  attempts  have 
been  strikingly  exemplified  in  history.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
man  justifies  himself  in  doing  whatever  is  not  expressly  forbidden 
by  what  he  accepts  as  his  code  of  rules.  So  a  celebrated  London 
clergyman  is  reported  to  have  justified  his  habit  of  smoking 
cigars  by  saying  that  he  found  only  ten  commandments  to  keep, 
and  not  one  of  them  forbids  smoking  cigars ;  therefore  he  would 
continue  to  smoke.  On  the  other  hand,  the  supposed  necessity 
of  having  a  rule  to  meet  every  possible  case  necessitates  an  end¬ 
less  multiplication  and  most  minute  ramification  of  rules.  This 
is  exemplified  in  the  rabbinical  attempts  to  construct  a  “  hedge 
about  the  law  ”  ;  and  the  innumerable  and  ridiculously  minute 
rules  became  indeed  a  thorny  hedge  through  which  no  one  could 
penetrate  to  a  real  obedience.  Concerning  the  fourth  command¬ 
ment  alone  the  rabbinical  interpreters  devised  innumerable  rules 
comprised  in  many  chapters,  prescribing  what  may  and  may  not 
be  done  on  the  Sabbath,  even  what  kind  of  knots  may  be  tied  in 
strings  and  what  are  forbidden,  and  a  multitude  of  other  acts 
equally  petty  and  insignificant.  These  rules  are  a  curiosity  and 
amusement  to  the  modern  reader,  but  must  have  been  confusing 
and  distracting  to  all  who  felt  bound  in  conscience  to  obey  the 
regulations.  Thus  they  made  the  law  of  none  effect  through 
their  traditions.  A  multiplication  and  minute  ramification  of 
rules,  like  the  rabbinical  traditions,  are  found  in  the  Buddhistic 
writings,  having  the  same  practical  tendencies.  The  Bishop  of 
Colombo  in  Ceylon  says  of  the  first  part  of  the  Buddhist  “  Vinaya 
Pitaka,”  or  Books  of  Discipline  :  “  In  the  Parajika  book  is  a  long 
passage  which  I  can  only  describe  as  the  most  cold-blooded  col¬ 
lection  of  moral  horrors  ever  put  together.  The  only  defence 
urged  of  it  is  that  to  be  sure  of  preventing  sin  you  must  specify 
every  possible  form  of  it,  lest  any  form  of  it  remaining  unforbid¬ 
den  should  be  thought  lawful.  The  explanation  is  genuine,  as 


THE  LAW  OF  LOVE  AND  RULES  OF  DUTY  279 


regards  the  enumeration,  in  equal  details,  of  sins  against  the 
seventh  commandment  as  of  those  against  the  eighth  ;  but  what 
a  dreary  unreality  of  moral  feeling  any  such  system  reveals ;  what 
can  be  hoped  of  a  moral  system  which  must  enumerate  all  the 
possible  forms  and  conditions  of  theft,  lest  any  theft  should  seem 
to  have  been  left  unforbidden.”  1  In  all  such  teaching,  the  inevit¬ 
able  tendency  is  to  a  mechanical  and  constrained  doing  of  a 
multitude  of  petty  outward  duties  with  the  entire  suppression  of 
the  unity,  spontaneity,  inspiration,  aspiration,  and  freedom  of  the 
life  of  love  ;  to  the  destruction  of  all  delicacy  of  moral  feeling, 
all  clear  moral  and  spiritual  discernment,  and  the  highest 
efficiency  for  good.  A  mere  knowledge  of  rules  can  never  be 
the  motor  force  for  obeying  them ;  this  is  only  love,  the  essence 
of  all  right  character  and  the  spring  and  inspiration  of  all  right 
action. 

Christians  individually  and  the  Christian  church  collectively 
exercise  the  prophetic  function,  both  in  testifying  to  what  they 
know  of  God  in  experience,  and  warning  against  immoral  tenden¬ 
cies,  and  also  in  foreseeing  evil  impending  on  account  of  wrong 
principles  and  wrong  courses  of  action,  and  in  calling  for  the  re¬ 
formation  of  abuses  and  the  putting  away  of  evil  practices  ;  and 
especially  in  testifying  to  the  necessity  of  faith  in  God  and  love  to 
God  and  man  and  warning  against  the  dangers  consequent  on 
their  decay.  And  the  continued  exercise  of  private  judgment  in 
determining  what  action  is  in  given  cases  the  true  application  of 
the  law  of  love,  educates  and  develops  this  prophetic  power.  It 
keeps  up  a  continual  recurrence  to  the  law  of  love  to  ascertain 
its  true  significance  in  concrete  application  to  real  cases,  and  to 
God  for  guidance  and  quickening  in  applying  it ;  it  sustains  and 
develops  the  unity  and  spontaneity  of  the  Christian  life  of  love  ;  it 
creates  delicacy  of  moral  and  spiritual  sensibility  sensitive  to  the 
first  changes  of  moral  temperature  ;  it  quickens  to  keen  moral 
and  spiritual  discernment  and  effective  power.  Thus  it  has  so 
often  come  to  pass  in  history  that  through  moral  and  spiritual 

1  Bishop  of  Colombo,  “Buddhism,”  Nineteenth  Century,  July,  1S88,  pp. 
130,  1 3 1 .  The  Bishop  also  expresses  his  regret  that  in  the  volume  of  the 
“  Sacred  Books  of  the  East  ”  translated  into  English,  which  professes  to  con¬ 
tain  this  First  Part  of  the  “  Vinaya  Pitaka,”  this  passage  is  not  only  omitted 
(he  says  no  printer  would  print  it),  but  that  its  omission  is  not  mentioned 
nor  in  any  way  indicated ;  thus  concealing  a  real  defect  in  Buddhistic 
morality. 


I 


280  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

foresight  it  has  been  the  poor  wise  man  who  by  his  wisdom  has 
delivered  the  city ;  and  so  often  and  so  sadly  it  has  come  to  pass 
that,  though  wisdom  is  better  than  strength,  nevertheless  the 
poor  man’s  wisdom  is  despised  and  his  words  are  not  regarded.1 

Therefore  the  principle  sometimes  advocated  is  not  true,  that 
Christianity  merely  renovates  individuals  to  the  life  of  love  in 
Christian  trust  and  service,  but  does  not  concern  itself  with  institu¬ 
tions,  laws,  and  customs.  Christianity  exists  only  in  the  lives  of 
Christians  and  in  the  love  of  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world 
unto  himself.  In  the  very  essence  of  Christian  character  are  in¬ 
volved  moral  and  spiritual  insight  and  therefore  foresight,  which 
require  prophetic  utterance  in  declaring  the  application  of  God’s 
law  of  love  to  society  in  its  actual  condition  and  needs,  and  warn¬ 
ing  of  the  evils  which  must  follow  the  toleration  of  wrong-doing 
and  “the  framing  of  mischief  by  a  law”  (Psalm  xciv.  20).  But 
the  Christian  begins  by  enlightening  the  people  in  the  knowledge 
of  truth  and  right  in  the  application  of  the  law  of  love,  and  by  the 
persuasive  influence  of  Christian  love  under  the  guidance  and 
influence  of  the  ever  present  Spirit  of  Holiness,  rather  than  by 
fomenting  an  immediate  revolution  of  established  institutions  and 
laws. 

In  all  progress  there  must  be  the  fixed  and  unchangeable,  and 
transition  and  change.  In  a  race  the  goal  to  be  reached  and  the 
laws  defining  the  line  of  advance  and  the  regulations  of  the  race 
are  fixed  and  unchanged  and  the  purpose  of  the  runner  is  con¬ 
tinuously  the  same,  but  the  race  is  continuous  transition  and 
change.  In  the  growth  of  a  germ,  the  ideal  of  the  tree  into  which 
it  is  growing  and  the  laws  directing  and  regulating  its  growth  are 
unchanging,  and  the  vital  force  of  the  organization  is  continuously 
directing  its  growth  to  the  realization  of  its  ideal ;  but  the  growth 
is  a  perpetual  transition,  and  marvelous  changes  appear  as  the 
white  and  slender  shoot  grows  through  successive  epochs,  putting 
forth  stem,  leaf,  flower,  and  fruit.  In  moral  and  spiritual  educa¬ 
tion  and  development  the  law  of  love  is  universal,  eternal,  un¬ 
changeable.  It  declares  the  love,  which  is  the  essential  and 
eternal  character  of  God,  to  be  the  norm  and  standard  of  all 
moral  perfection,  the  goal  of  all  moral  endeavor.  It  recognizes 
as  regulative  of  all  action,  the  principles,  laws,  and  ideals,  which 
are  eternal  in  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  which  regulate  the  action 

1  Ecclesiastes  ix.  14-16. 


THE  LAW  OF  LOVE  AND  RULES  OF  DUTY 


28l 


of  his  love  and  determine  the  constitution  of  the  universe,  and 
which  are  known  in  human  reason  as  regulative  of  all  thought  and 
action,  as  the  fundamental  postulates  of  all  intelligence,  the  laws 
of  all  action,  and  the  ideals  of  all  perfection.  These  are  universal, 
eternal,  and  unchangeable.  And  the  love  is  continuously  the  same, 
which  inspires  the  Christian  endeavor  and  gives  unity  to  the 
Christian  life  :  “  one  thing  I  do,  forgetting  the  things  which  are 
behind  and  stretching  forward  to  the  things  which  are  before,  I 
press  on  toward  the  goal.”  But  the  action  required  in  applying  the 
law  of  love  to  particular  cases  varies  with  the  conditions  of  the  case. 

The  only  real  progress  of  man  is  toward  this  fixed  and  un¬ 
changing  goal ;  toward  bringing  the  entire  life  and  action  of  the 
individual,  and  the  institutions,  laws,  and  customs  of  society  into 
conformity  with  the  law  of  love  and  with  the  principles,  laws,  and 
ideals  which  it  involves.  It  is  progress  in  bringing  all  men,  as  to 
character,  into  the  likeness  of  God  who  is  love,  and  transforming 
human  society  into  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  reign  of  love  over 
all  the  earth. 

But  the  realization  of  this  is  possible  only  by  progressive  edu¬ 
cation  and  culture.  The  goal  of  a  race  can  be  reached  only  by 
running  the  race.  The  fruit  of  a  plant  can  be  attained  only  by 
the  growth  of  the  plant.  The  necessity  of  growth  by  progressive 
education  and  development  is  inseparable  from  a  moral  system  of 
rational  free  agents  under  the  government  of  God.  The  action 
of  free  will  in  the  light  of  reason  is  essential  to  the  existence  and 
development  of  a  moral  system.  A  finite  person  must  form  his 
own  character,  acquire  his  knowledge  and  skill,  develop  his 
powers  of  action  and  his  capacities  of  receptivity  by  his  own 
free  action.  He  cannot  attain  the  perfection  of  his  being  by  a 
leap.  If  it  is  asked  why  God  does  not  create  personal  beings 
with  right  characters  and  fully  developed  in  moral  and  spiritual 
life,  the  answer  is  that  this  would  destroy  the  moral  system.  It 
would  substitute  the  action  of  God’s  almighty  power  in  place  of  the 
free  action  of  man.  The  being  so  created  would  not  be  a  person, 
but  a  mechanical  construction,  like  a  wax-flower  manufactured  to 
order,  without  life  or  growth  of  its  own.  If  it  is  asked  why  God 
does  not  accelerate  the  progress,  the  answer  is  the  same  ;  it  would 
be  substituting  God’s  action  for  man’s,  and  would  be  incompatible 
with  a  moral  system.  An  additional  answer  is  that  such  action  of 
God  is  not  only  incompatible  with  a  moral  system,  but  also  with 


282  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


the  necessary  finiteness  of  all  created  beings.  Here  we  recur  to 
principles  established  in  a  preceding  chapter,  that  what  is  effected 
by  God’s  action  must  be  commensurate  with  the  capacities  and 
powers  of  the  finite  being  on  which  he  acts  and  of  the  finite 
agency  through  which  he  acts ;  that  the  exercise  of  God’s 
almightiness  is  regulated  by  the  principles,  laws,  ideals,  and  ends 
of  reason  eternal  and  archetypal  in  the  absolute  mind,  that  is,  in 
God ;  and  that  he  does  for  every  creature  all  which  perfect  wis¬ 
dom  and  love  permit  and  require.  The  objections  implied  in  the 
two  foregoing  questions  rest  on  the  fundamental  error  that  God  is 
a  capricious  almightiness,  unregulated  by  reason,  not  governed  by 
wisdom  and  love.  Therefore  a  created  personal  being  must  attain 
education  and  development,  if  at  all,  by  his  own  action  and  there¬ 
fore  progressively.  Thus  man’s  moral  perceptions  are  clarified, 
his  consciousness  of  moral  and  spiritual  realities,  as  his  environ¬ 
ment,  becomes  more  constant  and  influential,  he  attains  a  deeper 
recognition  of  moral  character  as  the  inmost  life  of  love  and 
having  unity  therein  in  distinction  from  a  multiplicity  of  outward 
duties,  and  his  conception  of  a  right  life  becomes  more  elevated, 
pure,  and  comprehensive.  This  progressive  moral  and  spiritual 
development,  varying  under  different  types  of  religious  and  moral 
culture,  is  observable  in  all  history.  And  this  progressive  educa¬ 
tion  and  development  imply  change  in  the  action  by  which  the 
man  expresses  his  love  in  conformity  with  the  law.  Man  enlarges 
his  knowledge  of  the  universe  and  of  God ;  he  takes  possession  of 
the  powers  and  resources  of  nature,  he  strengthens  his  intellectual, 
moral,  spiritual,  and  physical  energy ;  but  he  uses  all  his  new 
powers  and  resources  in  the  service  of  God  and  man.  The  ways 
in  which  he  acts  in  rendering  the  service  of  love  are  wondrously 
changed ;  but  the  love  which  he  expresses,  and  the  principles 
which  regulate  his  action  remain  unchanged. 

Hence  the  same  outward  act  may  be  right  in  some  circum¬ 
stances  and  wrong  in  others  ;  and  doing  the  action  in  the  former 
case  and  not  doing  it  in  the  latter  may  be  both  equally  the  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  love  required  by  the  law.  Here  we  come  upon  a  dis¬ 
tinction  sometimes  denoted  as  a  relative  and  an  absolute  rectitude  ; 
the  former  denoting  the  rectitude  of  an  action  as  approved  by  the 
agent’s  own  conscience  ;  the  latter  denoting  rectitude  as  God  sees 
what  would  be  obedience  to  the  requirement  of  the  law  by  one 
educated  and  developed  to  full  moral  and  spiritual  perfection. 


THE  LAW  OF  LOVE  AND  RULES  OF  DUTY  2S3 

One  may  love  God  and  his  neighbor,  his  will  may  consent  to  the 
law  of  love  and  he  may  always  obey  it,  following  the  dictates  of 
his  own  conscience  according  to  all  the  light  which  he  can  attain. 
But  in  his  own  personal  development  and  in  the  progress  of  civil¬ 
ization  he  may  come  to  correct  his  views  as  to  the  action  by 
which  love  to  his  neighbor  may  be  most  wisely  and  effectively 
expressed.  For  example,  he  may  have  given  freely  to  all  beggars 
at  his  door.  Afterwards  he  may  have  learned  more  effective 
methods  of  helping  the  poor,  which  he  substitutes  for  indiscrim¬ 
inate  almsgiving.  In  the  former  case  his  action  was  right  rela¬ 
tively  to  his  own  conscience.  But  it  was  not  really  and  absolutely 
right,  because  it  was  not  according  to  the  facts  in  the  case,  —  it  was 
not  such  action  as  God  sees  to  be  the  most  wise  and  effective  in 
promoting  the  well-being  of  the  poor.  In  the  former  case  the 
love  may  have  been  as  sincere  and  pure  as  in  the  latter.  But  in 
the  latter  the  person  has  acted  more  fully  in  accordance  with  the 
reality  and  the  facts,  and  with  principles  of  reason  always  regu¬ 
lative  of  the  action  of  love  and  determining  the  effects  of  different 
lines  of  action,  designed  to  be  applications  of  the  law  of  love,  of 
which  he  was  ignorant  before.  But  in  the  former  case  the  person 
would  not  be  held  guiltless  unless  from  the  beginning  of  his  free 
moral  action  he  had  united  himself  with  God  by  faith,  and  so  had 
received  the  indwelling  Spirit  and  availed  himself  of  God’s  offered 
wisdom  and  strength,  unless  in  love  to  God  and  man  he  had  al¬ 
ways  obeyed  the  dictates  of  conscience  and  in  all  cases  had  used 
all  means  in  his  power  to  ascertain  what  action  in  each  case  would 
be  the  true  expression  of  Christian  love.  A  sinner’s  responsibility 
and  guilt  are  measured  by  the  whole  distance  from  what  he  might 
have  been,  if  he  had  always  done  his  best,  down  to  what  he  is. 
One  is  blameworthy  for  ignorance  when  he  has  neglected  any 
available  means  and  opportunities  for  gaining  knowledge. 

Institutions,  laws,  and  usages  may  be  true  expressions  of  the 
law  of  love  in  one  age  which  are  not  so  in  another ;  as  the  cradle 
and  the  rules  and  usages  of  the  nursery  are  right  for  infancy  but 
wrong  for  the  college  and  the  work  of  mature  life.  In  the  in¬ 
fancy  and  childhood  of  the  race,  institutions,  laws,  and  usages  may 
be  right  and  best  for  that  age,  which  must  be  superseded  by  what 
is  better  and  higher  in  the  advancement  of  the  race  to  maturity. 
Accordingly  Christ  spoke  of  usages  tolerated  by  Moses  on  ac¬ 
count  of  the  existing  state  of  society ;  but,  he  says,  from  the 


284  THE  LORD  of  all  in  moral  government 

beginning  it  was  not  so ;  they  were  relatively  right,  according  to 
the  knowledge  and  development  of  that  age ;  but  not  really  and 
absolutely  so.  And  Christ  declared  that  he  himself  had  many 
things  to  reveal  to  men  which  he  could  not,  before  his  death, 
communicate  to  his  disciples ;  for,  he  says,  ye  cannot  bear  them 
now,  but  you  will  understand  them  in  the  future  and  higher  stage 
of  the  progress  of  his  kingdom  when  the  Spirit  of  truth  and  holi¬ 
ness  shall  have  come.  Of  the  same  purport  are  his  parables  of 
the  new  patch  on  an  old  garment  and  of  the  new  wine  in  old 
bottles.  Hence,  in  all  the  progress  of  God’s  kingdom,  he  taketh 
away  the  old  that  he  may  establish  the  new. 

It  follows  that  there  can  be  no  true  progress  of  society  except 
by  the  progress  of  the  men  and  women  composing  society  toward 
a  higher  type  of  manhood  and  womanhood.  Society  can  become 
wiser  and  better  only  as  the  persons  composing  it  become  wiser 
and  better.  The  progress,  therefore,  does  not  begin  with  the 
change  of  institutions  and  laws,  but  with  the  renovation,  culture, 
and  development  of  the  persons  composing  society.  It  is  man 
who  creates  his  institutions,  laws,  and  usages,  not  the  institutions, 
laws,  and  usages  which  create  the  man.  Christ  said  :  The  sab¬ 
bath  was  made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  sabbath.  The  same 
is  true  of  all  institutions ;  they  are  for  man,  not  man  for  his 
institutions.  As  men  become  wiser  and  better  they  will  change 
and  improve  ther  institutions,  laws,  and  customs.  But  this 
change  in  individuals  must  be  not  merely  a  change  from  im¬ 
morality  to  morality  independently  of  God.  It  is  that  reunion 
of  the  soul  with  God  in  the  faith  which  worketh  by  love,  which 
our  Saviour  calls  the  new  birth,  and  which  is  the  beginning  of 
a  new  spiritual  life,  “  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man,”  the 
life  of  universal  love.  It  is  only  as  this  new  life  of  the  Spirit, 
the  life  of  faith  working  by  love,  begins  with  individuals  one  by 
one,  and  so  pervades  society,  that  the  true  progress  of  man  is 
possible. 

Thus  the  progress  will  be  by  modification  and  improvement 
corresponding  with  advancing  intelligence  and  spiritual  and 
moral  growth,  rather  than  by  revolution  ;  by  cherishing  and  de¬ 
veloping,  rather  than  by  destroying.  The  changes  should  come 
as  epochs  of  a  living  growth  ;  and  so  Christ  represents  the  progress 
of  his  kingdom,  —  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  after  that  the  full 
corn  in  the  ear.  All  that  is  essential  in  the  life  as  already  de- 


THE  LAW  OF  LOVE  AND  RULES  OF  DUTY  285 


veloped  persists  and  is  unfolded  in  a  new  growth.  It  is  only 
that  which  is  erroneous  or  pernicious,  or  that  which  has  done 
its  work  and  is  no  longer  needed,  which  is  sloughed  off  like  the 
dead  bark  from  a  living  tree.  When,  by  the  processes  of  a  liv¬ 
ing  growth,  an  epoch  of  further  development  has  come,  it  is  a 
false  conservatism  to  resist  it ;  as  if  the  blade  of  the  wheat 
should  resist  the  development  of  the  stalk,  and  the  stalk  should 
resist  the  opening  of  the  blossoms,  and  the  blossoms  should  resist 
the  setting  and  ripening  of  the  grain.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  a 
false  progressiveness  to  demand  the  ripened  grain  without  the 
processes  of  the  living  growth,  or  to  welcome  everything  new, 
even  rust  and  blight,  as  a  new  epoch  of  growth  improving  the 
quality  of  the  grain. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 


LOVE  IN  ITS  ASPECTS  AS  RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  BENEVOLENCE 

In  the  last  chapter  it  was  shown  that  all  specific  duties  are  sim¬ 
ply  specific  applications  of  the  law  of  love ;  and  the  principles 
and  methods  of  ascertaining  the  true  applications  of  the  law  were 
indicated.  In  further  defining,  classifying  and  distributing  duties 
in  application  of  the  law  of  love,  the  next  step  must  be  to  con¬ 
sider  the  love  itself  as  existing  in  two  aspects,  —  righteousness 
and  benevolence. 

The  love  required  in  the  law  is  the  subjective  character  of  a 
person.  It  is  the  essence  and  life  of  the  right  character,  of  which 
all  virtues  and  duties  are  specific  applications  and  expressions. 
This  love,  psychologically  defined,  is  the  choice  of  God  as  the 
supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  and  of  our  neighbor  as,  in  the 
moral  system  under  the  common  government  of  God,  equally 
with  ourselves  the  object  of  trust  and  service.  Benevolence  or 
good-will  to  the  person  loved  is  of  the  essence  of  the  love  ;  be¬ 
cause  the  law  requires  love  to  all,  the  love  must  involve  in  its 
essence  benevolence  or  good-will  to  all ;  it  must  seek  universal 
well  being.  Love  in  this  aspect  is  benevolence  or  good-will. 
But  this  good-will  is  not  to  be  exercised  at  random  or  capri¬ 
ciously  ;  it  may  not  seek  for  a  person  whatever  at  the  time  satis¬ 
fies  the  person’s  desires  or  gives  him  pleasure.  It  is  both 
required  and  regulated  by  the  truths,  laws,  and  ideals  in  the 
supreme  and  universal  reason,  that  is,  God.  It  is  these,  attested 
in  the  reason  and  conscience  of  man,  which  make  it  obligatory 
to  seek  universal  good  or  well-being  instead  of  universal  evil.  It 
is  these  which  determine  what  the  good  or  well-being  is.  For 
God  has  constituted  the  universe  in  accordance  with  these,  and 
the  only  real  good  or  well-being  possible  in  the  universe  is  that 
which  is  the  expression  of  truth,  in  accordance  with  law,  and  the 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  BENEVOLENCE 


287 


realization  of  ideal  perfection.  And  from  these  principles,  laws, 
and  ideals  of  reason  all  rules  regulating  the  action  of  love  are 
derived,  and  they  are  the  norms  or  standards  by  which  all  private 
judgments  of  duty  are  ultimately  determined.  Thus  love  is  re¬ 
quired  and  all  its  action  is  regulated  by  truths,  laws,  and  ideals 
of  reason.  Love  in  this  aspect,  as  thus  required  and  regulated 
by  reason,  may  be  called  righteousness.  Love,  therefore,  is  uni¬ 
versal  good-will  or  benevolence  regulated  in  its  exercise  by 
righteousness.  Love  is  the  choice  of  God  and  man  as  the  objects 
of  trust  and  service.  This  choice  involves  the  determination  of 
the  will  to  seek  universal  well-being,  and  in  this  aspect  it  is 
benevolence.  It  also  involves  the  consent  of  the  will  to  the 
reason  and  the  determination  to  regulate  all  action  in  seeking 
well-being  by  its  truths,  laws,  and  ideals ;  and  in  this  aspect  it  is 
righteousness. 

These  are  two  aspects  of  one  and  the  same  universal  love  ; 
two  bearings  of  one  and  the  same  choice.  In  the  very  act  of 
choosing  God  as  supreme  and  our  neighbor  equally  with  ourselves 
as  objects  of  trust  and  service,  the  will  consents  to  the  eternal 
law  which  requires  it,  and  which  determines  what  the  true  good 
is  and  the  ways  in  which  it  can  be  attained.  So,  to  compare 
great  things  with  small,  in  the  very  act  of  determining  to  go  to  any 
place  the  person  consents  to  regulate  his  action  by  the  time-table 
of  the  railroad  on  which  he  must  travel.  Before  this  he  may 
have  intellectually  approved  of  the  time-table.  But  his  will 
has  never  determined  to  act  in  accordance  with  it  till  he  deter¬ 
mines  to  travel  on  the  road.  Then  he  consents  to  it  and  studies 
it  as  the  law  to  his  own  action.  In  choosing  God  as  the  supreme 
object  of  trust  and  service  we  do  not  choose  him  as  an  unknown 
or  characterless  God ;  nor  as  a  God  of  mere  resistless  and  capri¬ 
cious  almightiness.  We  choose  him  as  the  true  God,  all-wise, 
all-righteous,  all-perfect,  in  whom  the  truths,  laws,  ideals,  and  ends 
of  reason  are  eternal,  the  God  who  is  love  and  has  proclaimed 
the  inexorable  law  of  love.  The  choice  of  God  as  the  supreme 
object  of  trust  and  service  is  in  itself  the  choice  of  his  truth  as 
our  light  and  guide,  his  law  as  binding  on  us,  the  ideals  of  perfec¬ 
tion  eternal  in  him  as  the  norm  and  goal  of  all  aspiration  and 
attainment,  and  good  or  well-being  only  as  determined  and 
made  possible  in  accordance  with  these  truths,  laws,  and  ideals. 
And,  as  it  was  explained  in  a  former  chapter,  in  the  act  of 


288  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

choosing  God  and  man  as  objects  of  trust  and  service,  which  is 
the  essence  of  the  love  required  in  the  law,  the  will  consents  to 
and  accepts  the  law  as  the  rule  of  life ;  and  it  is  only  in  that  act 
of  love  that  the  will  can  consent  to  and  accept  the  law  and  come 
into  harmony  with  it.  No  one  consents  to  the  law  except  in 
actually  loving  God  and  man ;  and  no  one  actually  loves  God 
and  man  without  therein  consenting  to  the  law  of  love  and 
accepting  it  as  the  rule  of  life.  Therefore  righteousness  is  not 
excluded  from  love  nor  in  antagonism  to  it,  as  is  often  supposed ; 
it  is  itself  one  essential  aspect  of  love.  And  benevolence 
is  not  the  whole  of  love,  as  many  suppose ;  it  also  is  one  aspect 
of  love.  Righteousness  and  benevolence  are  the  two  essential 
aspects  of  love  to  God  and  man ;  if  either  were  wanting,  the 
love  would  no  longer  exist ;  and  neither  true  righteousness  nor 
true  benevolence  can  exist  without  the  other;  they  are  possible 
only  in  union  as  the  two  essential  aspects  of  universal  love. 

The  recognition  of  righteousness  and  benevolence  as  the  two 
aspects  of  Christian  love,  and  of  their  inseparable  unity  in  the 
love,  is  essential  as  a  basis  for  any  correct  classification  of  duties 
in  Christian  ethics.  It  must  precede  the  common  classification 
by  the  distribution  of  duties  to  different  persons  and  communi¬ 
ties  ;  as  duties  to  the  family,  to  the  state,  and  the  like. 

I.  Righteousness.  —  Because  the  first  three  fundamental  ideas 
of  reason,  the  True,  the  Right,  and  the  Perfect,  are  norms  for 
determining  what  the  Good  is,  and  are  regulative  of  all  action 
in  seeking  it,  we  designate  by  the  general  name  of  righteousness 
the  consent  of  the  will  to  be  regulated  by  these  in  all  action 
in  trusting  and  serving  God  and  man.  Therefore  love  or  right 
character,  in  its  aspect  as  righteousness,  presents  three  corre¬ 
sponding  subdivisions,  Truthfulness  or  love  of  truth,  Justice,  and 
Complacency. 

i.  Truthfulness,  or  the  love  of  truth,  is  the  consent  of  the  will 
to  the  truth  as  distinguished  from  intellectual  assent  or  belief, 
and  from  curiosity  and  the  scientific  motives  and  emotions, 
which  are  feelings.  It  is  the  consent  of  the  will  to  the  regulation 
of  all  action  in  conformity  with  the  truth ;  the  harmony  of  the 
will  by  its  own  free  choice  with  the  truth. 

The  perception  of  truth,  being  wholly  an  act  of  the  intellect 
and  not  directly  dependent  on  the  will,  does  not  belong  pri- 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  BENEVOLENCE 


289 


marily  to  moral  character.  One  believes  on  evidence  and  has 
no  choice  about  it.  And  curiosity  and  the  scientific  motives  and 
emotions  which  interest  us  in  the  investigation  of  truth,  being 
instinctive  or  rational  feelings,  do  not  belong  to  moral  character 
in  its  primary  meaning.1  The  love  of  truth,  so  far  as  it  belongs 
to  moral  character,  is  the  state  of  the  will  through  its  own  free 
choice  in  reference  to  the  truth.  So  far,  then,  as  the  love  of  truth 
belongs  to  moral  character  in  its  primary  sense,  it  is  the  consent 
of  the  will  to  the  truth  ;  the  harmony  of  the  will  with  the  reason 
in  its  enunciation  of  truth.  There  is  no  choice,  preference, 
or  determination  of  the  will  opposing  the  belief  and  acknowledg¬ 
ment  of  truth  and  constituting  a  bias  against  it ;  but  the  choice, 
preference,  or  determination  of  the  will  is  consenting  to  and 
in  harmony  with  truth  as  known  by  the  reason. 

The  love  of  truth  must  be  further  defined  as  it  exists  under 
three  different  conditions. 

First,  in  the  process  of  investigation  before  the  truth  is  known, 
it  is  candor.  This  is  the  absence  of  any  hindrance  to  belief 
of  the  truth  arising  from  any  choice  or  determination  of  the  will, 
from  any  bias  of  acquired  character  or  of  personal  interest, 
or  from  any  repugnance  of  natural  feeling.  It  is  docility,  open¬ 
ness  of  mind  and  heart  to  receive  whatever  may  be  found  to  be 
true.  It  is  the  choice  and  determination  of  the  will  to  make 
a  fair  and  thorough  investigation  in  order  to  ascertain  what 
is  the  true  reality. 

Secondly,  after  the  truth  is  known,  the  love  of  it  is  trust  or  con¬ 
fidence  in  it,  the  determination  to  stand  by  it,  to  maintain  it,  and, 
so  far  as  it  has  practical  bearings,  to  apply  it  to  the  conduct  of 
life.2  This  is  wisdom,  which  is  knowledge  of  truth  applied  in  the 
determination  of  character  and  the  regulation  of  conduct.  The 
person  who  loves  the  truth  will  say  :  I  have  found  this  to  be  true. 
I  trust  myself  to  it ;  I  rest  my  whole  weight  on  it.  I  am  ready  to 
live  by  it  and  to  die  by  it ;  to  live  for  it  and  to  die  for  it.  I  will 
follow  whithersoever  it  may  lead.  This  aspect  of  love  of  truth 
is  entirely  overlooked  in  much  of  the  declamation  now  current 
respecting  love  of  truth,  in  which  the  truth  is  always  assumed  to 
be  unknown.  Hence  love  of  the  truth  is  strangely  identified  with 
entire  indifference  to  it.  The  doctrine  is,  that  in  respect  to  any 

1  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  345,  347. 

2  See  Chap.  xix.  III.  2. 


VOL.  11. —  19 


290  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


proposition  whatsoever,  one  must  be  equally  ready  to  believe  or 
disbelieve  it ;  the  mind  must  always  be  at  an  equipoise  in  respect 
to  it.  It  is  a  professed  love  of  truth  in  the  abstract  before  it  is 
known,  but  an  entire  indifference  to  every  truth  so  soon  as  it 
is  believed  and  enunciated.  On  this  theory  it  is  entirely  incon¬ 
ceivable  that  any  one  could  be  justified  in  becoming  a  martyr  for 
the  truth.  On  the  contrary,  by  so  doing,  according  to  this  theory, 
he  would  only  show  himself  to  be  prejudiced,  illiberal,  and  bigoted. 
But  true  love  of  truth  implies,  after  it  is  known,  trust  in  it,  loyalty 
and  allegiance  to  it.  It  may  become  inwrought  into  the  whole 
inmost  moral  and  spiritual  life.  For  the  belief  of  truth,  and  the 
consent  of  the  will  to  it  in  its  practical  applications,  are  like  warp 
and  woof  inwoven  into  all  right  character.  Can  it  be  possible 
that  Paul  at  the  Areopagus  in  Athens  was  in  an  attitude  of  indif¬ 
ference,  as  this  false  conception  of  the  love  of  truth  requires? 
that  he  was  as  ready  to  believe  the  speculations  of  heathen  phi¬ 
losophy  as  the  truths  of  Christianity,  as  ready  to  accept  and 
worship  the  gods  of  Greece  as  the  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the 
world  unto  himself?  And  history  shows  that  the  glorious  epochs 
of  human  progress  have  been  times  of  strong  belief  of  truth,  and 
of  intense  earnestness  of  will  in  its  advocacy,  defence,  and  propa¬ 
gation,  daring  and  doing  in  its  proclamation,  suffering  and  dying 
in  loyalty  and  allegiance  to  it.  The  ages  of  progress  and  benefi¬ 
cent  achievement  have  been  ages  of  faith ;  the  ages  of  criticism, 
skepticism,  and  unbelief  have  been  ages  of  moral  and  spiritual 
decay.  The  current  tendency  to  identify  candor  and  impartiality 
in  the  investigation  of  truth  with  indifference  to  it  after  it  is  known, 
must  rest  on  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  errors  :  it  must  either 
deny  the  possibility  of  man’s  knowing  any  truth  or  reality,  or  it 
must  deny  that  truth  when  known  has  any  bearing  on  the  interest 
of  human  life. 

The  lover  of  truth,  in  this  confidence  in  it  and  loyalty  and 
fidelity  to  it,  will  have  confidence  that  truth  must  prevail.  None 
can  utter  more  heartily  and  courageously  than  he  the  often-quoted 
and  sublime  maxims  which  declare  that  truth  is  mighty  and  will 
prevail ;  that  truth  crushed  to  earth  will  rise  again.  The  universe 
is  made  up  of  realities  amid  which  men  dwell,  and  which  may  be 
trusted  to  reveal  themselves  more  and  more  to  men  as  they  come 
continually  in  contact  with  them  and  are  obliged  to  investigate 
what  they  are.  But  this  is  not  confidence  that  truth  will  prevail 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  BENEVOLENCE 


291 


of  itself  and  overthrow  error  without  the  efforts  of  men  to  eluci¬ 
date,  defend,  and  propagate  it.  Here  we  meet  another  misappre¬ 
hension  of  the  love  of  truth,  representing  that  truth  is  so  great  it 
will  take  care  of  itself,  and  so  throwing  reproach  on  all  earnest¬ 
ness  and  carefulness  in  teaching  and  defending  it  as  needless  or 
as  assuming  that  human  care  is  necessary  to  preserve  the  truth. 
Thus  Oliver  W.  Holmes  says  :  “  Some  people  look  on  truth  as 
an  invalid,  who  can  take  the  air  only  in  a  close  carriage,  with 
a  gentleman  in  a  black  coat  on  the  box.  But  truth  is  tough.  It 
will  not  break  like  a  bubble  at  a  touch ;  nay,  you  may  kick  it 
about  all  day  like  a  football,  and  it  will  be  round  and  full  at  even¬ 
ing.”  This  recognizes  no  distinction  between  truth  and  man’s 
knowledge  of  the  truth.  The  realities  of  the  universe  and  the 
eternal  truths  revealed  in  them  are  persistently  the  same,  and 
independent  of  man’s  care  and  protection.  But  man’s  knowl¬ 
edge  of  these  realities  and  truths  is  a  very  different  matter  and 
does  depend  on  man’s  diligence  in  ascertaining  the  truth  and 
making  it  known  to  others.  Thus  the  sentiment  quoted  implies 
that  man  has  nothing  to  do  in  refuting  error  and  ascertaining, 
vindicating,  and  proclaiming  the  truth.  It  entirely  ignores  the 
fact  that  error  and  falsity  have  darkened  the  world  through  all 
human  history ;  that  truth  has  made  its  way  slowly,  laboriously, 
and  painfully  in  displacing  it ;  that  this  advance  has  been  made, 
not  by  truth  left  to  itself,  but  by  great  scholars  who  have  devoted 
their  lives  to  its  investigation,  by  great  teachers  who  have  vindi¬ 
cated  and  propagated  it,  by  great  heroes  who  have  suffered  and 
died  in  its  defence,  by  innumerable  workers  unknown  to  fame 
who  have  taught  it  and  have  exemplified  it  in  their  lives,  and  by 
Christ’s  church  through  the  ministry  of  the  word  in  accordance 
with  his  command,  Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel 
to  every  creature.  Thus,  through  innumerable  and  terrible  con¬ 
flicts  with  error  and  falsehood,  the  knowledge  of  the  truth  has 
been  carried  onward  and  enlarged  in  its  slow  but  glorious  progress 
through  the  centuries.  Even  scientific  discoverers,  announcing 
great  and  even  epochal  discoveries  in  science  or  inventions  in 
art,  have  encountered  ridicule  and  opposition  from  scientists  them¬ 
selves,  and  have  had  long  controversies  against  old-established 
error,  before  they  could  attain  acceptance  of  the  new  truth. 
History  shows  that  in  like  manner  the  knowledge  of  moral  and 
religious  truth  has  advanced  through  great  conflicts  with  error  and 


292  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


by  persistent  and  strenuous  efforts  from  age  to  age  in  ascertain¬ 
ing,  declaring,  and  defending  the  truth,  witnessing  for  it  often  unto 
death.  The  ancient  prophets,  Paul  and  the  apostles,  the  early 
Christian  churches,  the  Christian  fathers  and  martyrs,  Luther  and 
the  reformers,  faithful  witnesses  for  Christ  in  all  ages,  have  not 
been  nursing  truth  as  a  pale  and  feeble  invalid,  but  have  been 
declaring  it  as  truth  and  contending  for  its  sovereignty  as  such 
over  the  thought  and  lives  of  men.  In  the  parable  quoted,  the 
kicking  of  truth  as  a  football  must  represent  the  assaults  of  error 
and  falsehood  on  it ;  it  is  the  action  of  the  misleaders,  deceivers, 
and  betrayers  of  men,  who  kick  truth  in  contempt  or  trample  it 
under  foot  in  rage.  The  fact  that  truth  is  not  changed  by  these 
assaults  is  no  argument  against  the  necessity  of  carefully  ascertain¬ 
ing  and  defining  it,  and  of  earnestly  declaring  and  defending  it ;  it 
is,  on  the  contrary,  an  encouragement  and  inspiration  of  those 
who  ascertain  and  define  the  truth,  who  proclaim  and  vindicate  it 
as  the  light  of  all  thinking  and  the  law  to  all  action,  and  as  dis¬ 
closing  the  real  goal  of  all  right  aspiration  and  endeavor,  the  light, 
law,  and  inspiration  of  all  human  progress,  whether  of  the  indi¬ 
vidual  or  of  society. 

Truth  is  the  intellectual  equivalent  of  reality.  It  is  reality  in¬ 
tellectually  apprehended  and  enunciated.  Trust  in  truth,  being 
an  act  of  will,  does  not  terminate  on  the  truth  as  the  intellectual 
apprehension  of  a  reality  and  its  enunciation  in  words.  It  goes 
through  the  words  and  the  intellectual  apprehension  which  they 
enunciate  to  the  reality  itself  which  the  intellect  apprehends  and 
the  words  declare.  We  can  trust  only  a  being  exerting  power. 
Truth  without  power,  truth  revealing  no  reality  or  power,  cannot 
be  the  object  of  trust.  In  fact,  it  would  no  longer  be  truth  ;  for 
it  is  of  the  essence  of  truth  that  it  is  the  intellectual  equivalent  of 
reality.  One  does  not  trust  in  the  law  of  gravitation  as  appre¬ 
hended  by  the  intellect  and  enunciated  in  words.  To  this  we 
give  the  assent  of  the  intellect ;  we  believe  it  to  be  truth.  But 
in  the  act  of  the  will  we  trust  the  mysterious  power  that  through¬ 
out  the  physical  universe  is  always  energizing  in  accordance  with 
this  law.  The  will  does  not  trust  the  thought  or  idea  that  God 
is  love  to  which  the  intellect  assents  as  truth,  but  in  the  living 
God  eternally  acting  in  love.  The  will  does  not  trust  the  mere 
idea  of  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself,  but  the 
living  God  revealed  in  Christ  and  the  Spirit  whom  he  sends  from 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  BENEVOLENCE 


293 


the  Father,  the  divine  energy  inspired  by  love  and  enlightened 
and  directed  by  wisdom  that  is  acting  through  all  human  history 
in  redeeming  man  from  sin.  Looking  even  at  what  is  sometimes 
regarded  as  merely  subjective,  trust  in  the  intuitions  and  universal 
postulates  of  reason  is  not  trust  merely  in  a  thought,  idea,  or  truth, 
but  is  trust  in  reason  itself,  in  reason  as  supreme  and  universal, 
trust  in  the  human  reason  as  in  the  likeness  of  the  divine  and 
absolute  Reason  and  participating  in  its  light.  That  which  is  the 
basis  of  all  science  and  makes  science  possible  is  the  truth  that 
whatever  exists  is  a  manifestation  of  reason  and  therefore  suscep¬ 
tible  of  rational  —  that  is,  scientific  —  apprehension  and  explana¬ 
tion.  The  belief  of  this  truth  is  explicit  or  implicit  in  all  scientific 
investigation  and  reasoning.  This  intellectual  belief  is  the  war¬ 
rant  for  the  trust  of  the  will  acting  on  the  assumption  of  the 
rational  order  of  the  universe.  And  this  implies,  still  further, 
trust  in  God,  the  absolute  and  universal  Reason  energizing  with 
almighty  power  in  accordance  with  reason  and  realizing  the 
archetypes  of  perfect  wisdom  and  love.  The  Scriptures  insist 
that  faith  is  the  beginning  of  all  right  character  and  that  continu¬ 
ously  all  right  character  and  action  must  be  by  faith.  Now  we 
find  faith  or  trust  to  be  essential  in  love  of  truth,  —  that  is,  in  the 
consent  of  the  will  to  truth.  Because  this  faith  or  trust  is  found  in 
the  relation  of  character  to  truth,  which  is  the  first  fundamental  idea 
of  reason,  ethical  philosophy  must  recognize  it  first  in  the  analysis 
and  development  of  the  character  which  is  the  true  expression  of 
the  love  required  in  the  law.  Thus  science  and  philosophy,  not 
less  than  the  scriptures,  recognize  faith  or  trust  as  the  first  ele¬ 
ment  of  right  character.  In  its  most  abstract  form  the  trust,  as 
thus  recognized,  is  trust  in  the  reality  of  things  as  ordered  by 
reason  and  susceptible  of  scientific  explanation,  as  expressing 
rational  truth,  ordered  in  accordance  with  rational  law  and  pro¬ 
gressively  realizing  the  rational  ends  of  perfection  and  well-being. 
More  definitely  it  is  trust  in  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  who  thus 
orders  the  universe  in  wisdom  and  love.  And  because  in  Christ, 
the  Light  that  lighteth  every  man  came  into  the  world  and  mani¬ 
fested  in  human  forms  the  absolute  Reason  as  like  the  human 
reason,  and  the  perfect  wisdom  and  love  of  God,  and  because 
God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself,  this  faith 
which  is  the  living  germ  of  all  right  character,  is,  when  we  come 
to  our  highest  knowledge  of  the  universe  and  of  God  revealed  in 
it,  trust  in  the  God  in  Christ  redeeming  men  from  sin. 


294  THE  LORD  of  all  in  moral  government 


Thirdly,  the  love  of  truth  as  manifested  in  utterance  or  expres¬ 
sion  of  it  appears  in  two  forms,  veracity  and  sincerity. 

Veracity  is  the  disposition  or  purpose  to  utter  truth  in  speech 
with  the  exclusion  of  all  lying. 

Sincerity  is  the  disposition  or  purpose  to  express  the  truth  in 
action.  Complete  sincerity  makes  the  external  in  man  to  be  the 
true  expression  of  his  inward  thought  and  character.  The  sincere 
man’s  acts  and  deportment  are  the  real  expression  of  what  he  is. 
He  is  like  the  golden  gods  on  the  shield  of  Achilles ;  the  gods 
and  the  garments  which  clothed  them  were  all  of  one  piece  and 
all  pure  gold.  Sincerity  of  course  excludes  hypocrisy  and  delib¬ 
erate  dissimulation.  But  it  is  much  more  than  this.  It  is  the 
complete  harmony  of  spirit  and  action,  so  that  the  person  sponta¬ 
neously  and  without  effort  acts  out  what  is  in  him.  It  is  frankness 
and  ingenuousness  as  opposed  to  secretiveness  and  dissimulation ; 
artlessness  and  naturalness  as  opposed  to  affectation  and  pretence  ; 
simplicity  as  opposed  to  duplicity ;  straightforwardness  as  opposed 
to  cunning,  trickery,  and  intrigue ;  heartiness  and  earnestness  as 
opposed  to  cant  in  profession,  formalism  in  observance,  and  in¬ 
difference  and  heartlessness  in  action ;  it  is  the  reality  of  virtuous 
character  and  of  generous  and  noble  feeling  expressed  in  action, 
as  opposed  to  mere  decencies  and  conventionalities  as  exhibited 
in  the  woman  satirized  by  Pope  : 

“  She  speaks,  believes,  and  acts  just  as  she  ought ; 

But  never,  never  reached  one  generous  thought ; 

Virtue  she  finds  too  painful  an  endeavor, 

Content  to  dwell  in  decencies  forever.”  1 

Sincerity  implies  that  the  inward,  living  character  penetrates 
and  characterizes  all  the  conduct,  like  a  vital  force,  imparting  its 
own  unity  to  all  the  diversified  action ;  a  unity  in  diversity 
analogous  to  that  which  the  organic  life  produces  in  a  tree. 
Every  part  of  an  oak  is  penetrated  by  the  distinctive  quality  of 
the  tree.  You  see  it  in  the  distance  and  you  know  it  by  its  shape 
to  be  an  oak.  You  pick  up  a  single  leaf  and  you  know  that  it  is 
an  oak  leaf.  You  see  and  taste  a  fragment  of  bark,  and  you  say 
it  is  oak  bark.  You  see  a  piece  of  dry  board  and  you  recognize 
the  distinctive  grain  of  the  tree.  So  in  a  man  of  sincerity  his 
whole  conduct  is  the  spontaneous  outgrowth  of  his  inmost  life, 

1  Moral  Essays  ;  Epistle  ii.  “  Of  the  Characters  of  Women,”  lines  161-164. 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  BENEVOLENCE 


295 


the  natural  and  honest  expression  of  the  man.  Thus  is  insured  a 
vital  unity  in  all  the  diversity  of  the  person’s  life.  In  every 
aspect  in  which  he  presents  himself,  in  every  fragmentary  thought, 
sentiment,  and  act  you  recognize  the  distinctive  character  of  the 
man.  The  vital  force  of  his  character  has  developed  itself  with¬ 
out  obstruction,  creating  his  outward  history  and  penetrating  and 
characterizing  it  in  every  part  with  its  own  quality.  Sir  Thomas 
Browne  says  :  “  The  finger  of  God  hath  left  an  inscription  on  all 
his  works,  not  graphical  or  composed  of  letters,  but  of  their  sev¬ 
eral  forms,  constitutions,  parts  and  operations,  which,  aptly  joined 
together,  do  make  the  word  that  doin  express  their  natures.”  So 
all  the  acts  and  outward  manifestations  of  a  sincere  person  are 
the  letters  fitly  joined  in  one  word  which  expresses  what  he  is. 

Sincerity  as  thus  defined  is  indispensable  to  the  exertion  of 
one’s  greatest  power.  If  one  would  do  good  he  must  be  good ; 
if  he  would  do  great  good  he  must  be  great  in  goodness. 

Character  is  continuous  in  its  influence,  while  words  and 
actions  are  put  forth  and  cease.  A  person’s  benefactions  may 
be  frequent  but  they  cannot  be  continuous ;  but  one’s  presence 
is  sunny  or  drizzly,  diffusing  cheerfulness  or  gloom  every  hour. 
A  good  man  does  good  by  directly  inculcating  goodness.  He 
does  more  by  his  good  life  lying  always  before  the  people,  with 
all  its  alternations  of  action  and  repose,  like  a  grand  landscape, 
with  principles  of  eternal  righteousness  towering  like  immovable 
mountains,  with  vales  of  peace  and  fields  of  industry  fertilized  by 
gladdening  streams  which  burst  from  those  mountains’  sides,  rich 
in  the  good  fruits  of  truth,  justice,  and  good-will,  and  all  warm 
in  the  sunlight  of  Christian  love  radiating  blessing  in  acts  of 
Christian  faith  and  service. 

God  is  truthful ;  he  is  the  God  of  truth,  not  only  in  the  sense 
that  all  truth  is  archetypal  and  eternal  in  him,  but  also  in  the 
sense  that  all  his  action  is  the  spontaneous  expression  and  thus 
the  continuous  and  ever  progressive  revelation  of  what  he  is,  of 
his  power,  wisdom,  and  love,  of  all  that  is  divine  in  him. 

2.  The  second  aspect  or  subdivision  of  righteousness  is  justice, 
corresponding  to  the  second  fundamental  idea  of  reason,  the 
Right,  which  denotes  conformity  of  action  or  character  with  law 
recognized  as  authoritative  and  imposing  obligation.  Justice  is 
the  consent  of  the  will  to  the  law  of  God,  which  is  the  law  of 
love.  It  is  the  harmony  of  the  will  with  the  law  through  its  own 


296  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


free  consent.  In  choosing  God  and  our  neighbor  as  objects  of 
trust  and  service  the  will  consents  to  the  law  and  comes  into 
harmony  with  it.  And  it  is  only  in  thus  choosing  that  the  will 
can  consent  to  the  law  and  come  into  harmony  with  it.  The  will 
consents  to  the  law  of  love  only  in  actually  loving  God  with  all 
the  heart  and  our  neighbor  as  ourselves.  Righteousness  in  this 
aspect  as  the  consent  of  the  will  to  the  law  is  called  justice. 

Justice,  as  the  consent  of  the  will  to  the  law,  must  be  distin¬ 
guished  from  assent  to  the  law  and  approval  of  it  by  reason  and 
conscience.  This  assent  and  approval  are  presupposed  in  the 
action  of  the  will  consenting  to  the  law  and  obeying  it,  or  refus¬ 
ing  consent  and  disobeying  it. 

Justice  is  not  co-extensive  and  synonymous  with  righteousness. 
The  latter  denotes  a  general  class  of  virtues,  under  which  truth¬ 
fulness,  justice,  and  complacency  are  the  three  species.  This 
distinction  is  very  commonly  overlooked,  and  justice  is  used  as 
a  synonym  of  righteousness.  It  would  be  a  gain  to  theology,  in 
promoting  clearness  and  precision  of  thought,  if  this  distinction 
were  always  regarded. 

Justice  is  subjective  character  or  choice ;  it  is  the  consent  of 
the  will  to  the  law.  It  is  thus  distinguished  from  right,  which 
denotes  the  conformity  of  a  choice,  character,  or  action  with  the 
law.  An  action  in  accordance  with  the  law  is  right ;  a  person 
whose  will  consents  to  the  law  is  just.  The  word  “  just,”  however, 
is  sometimes  used  as  synonymous  with  “  right  ”  ;  right  acts  are 
spoken  of  as  just  acts,  right  laws  as  just  laws.  “  Right,”  however, 
is  rarely  used  instead  of  “just”  to  characterize  a  person.  We  do 
not  speak  of  a  right  person  meaning  a  just  person.  When  we 
say  the  man  was  right,  we  refer  to  his  action ;  he  uttered  a  cor¬ 
rect  opinion,  gave  a  correct  decision,  did  a  right  action.  When 
we  speak  of  just  laws  we  mean  laws  enacted  in  the  exercise  of 
justice  and  requiring  justice.  It  would  remove  considerable 
confusion  of  thought  in  theology  if  it  were  always  remem¬ 
bered  that  justice  is  a  trait  of  subjective  personal  character; 
that  it  is  simply  the  consent  of  a  person  in  his  free  will  to  the  law 
of  love  in  all  its  legitimate  applications  as  authoritatively  impos¬ 
ing  obligation  to  obey  it,  and  his  consequent  volitional  action  in 
conformity  with  it. 

Justice  in  its  essential  idea  is  of  the  nature  of  love.  It  carries 
altruism  in  its  essence.  It  recognizes  other  persons  in  relation 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  BENEVOLENCE 


297 


to  ourselves  and  within  our  sphere  of  action,  to  whom  we  owe 
service.  It  carries  us  out  of  our  egoism  and  isolation  and  recog¬ 
nizes  our  membership  in  the  moral  system  under  the  law  of  love. 
It  recognizes  others  as  objects  of  trust  and  service  equally  with 
ourselves ;  it  recognizes  ourselves  as  objects  of  trust  and  service, 
not  supremely  and  exclusively,  but  on  an  equality  with  others  in 
the  moral  system  and  under  the  law  of  God.  Justice,  therefore, 
cannot  be  in  antagonism  to  love  ;  it  is  an  essential  aspect  of  love. 

Justice,  as  the  consent  of  the  will  to  the  law,  necessarily  has 
three  aspects  or  subdivisions. 

First,  it  is  the  consent  of  the  will  to  the  authority  of  the  law 
and  to  the  obligation  which  it  imposes ;  it  is  the  consent  of  the 
will  to  the  law  of  love  as  supreme  and  authoritative  law.  It  ex¬ 
tinguishes  self-will  in  which  a  man  would  set  up  his  own  will  as 
his  law,  saying  with  Pharaoh  :  Who  is  Jehovah,  that  I  should 
obey  his  voice?  It  is  submission  to  rightful  authority,  loyalty 
and  allegiance  to  government  and  law.  On  the  part  of  the 
government  itself  it  is  consent  to  the  authority  of  the  moral  or 
divine  law  manifested  in  declaring  and  maintaining  it. 

Justice  in  its  second  aspect  is  the  consent  of  the  will  to  the 
requirements  and  prohibitions  of  the  law,  the  purpose  to  obey  it 
in  all  its  commandments.  It  is  the  willing  doing  of  all  one’s 
duties,  the  rendering  to  all  their  dues.  It  is  discharging  every 
obligation  to  one’s  self  or  to  others.  One  may  be  just  to  himself 
as  really  as  to  others.  Hence  the  common  remark,  In  justice  to 
myself  I  must  do  it  or  refuse  to  do  it.  Justice  in  this  sense  is 
predicable  of  civil  government.  Civil  government  itself  is  under 
obligation  to  enact  just  laws.  It  must  recognize  God’s  law  of 
universal  love  in  all  its  principles  and  their  legitimate  applica¬ 
tions  as  binding  on  itself  and  must  make  all  its  enactments  in 
conformity  therewith.  A  government  is  said  to  be  just  when  it 
enacts  just  laws  and  adjudicates  and  executes  them  justly. 

Justice,  in  its  third  aspect,  is  the  consent  of  the  will  to  the 
sanction  of  the  law ;  to  its  maintenance  and  enforcement  by  the 
government  in  the  infliction  of  penalties  on  transgressors.  This 
may  be  called  vindicative  justice,  as  maintaining  and  vindicating 
the  authority  of  the  law ;  or  retributive  justice  as  inflicting  just 
retribution  on  the  transgressor.  A  just  person  consents  to  this 
maintenance  and  enforcement  of  law  by  penalty  and  gives  his 
cordial  support  to  the  government  in  detecting  and  punishing 


298  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  TN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


transgressors.  If  himself  a  transgressor  and  penitent,  he  will 
consent  to  the  penalty  on  himself  as  deserved  by  his  transgression 
and  a  just  vindication  of  law.  So  Paul  said  :  “  If  I  am  a  wrong¬ 
doer  and  have  committed  anything  worthy  of  death,  I  refuse  not 
to  die”  (Acts  xxv.  n).  Justice  in  this  sense  is  exercised  by  the 
government  in  inflicting  on  transgressors  just  punishments 
required  by  just  laws. 

God  is  just  in  all  three  of  these  meanings  of  the  word.  He 
knows  the  law  of  love  as  eternal  and  of  absolute  authority  in  his 
own  absolute  Reason ;  and  his  will  eternally  and  freely  consents 
to  its  authority.  He  consents  also  to  its  universal  requirement 
by  obeying  it  himself.  He  has  constituted  the  universe  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  it  and  with  all  the  principles  of  reason  implied  in  it 
and  with  all  its  reasonable  applications.  All  God’s  action  is  in 
conformity  with  this  law  and  is  the  continuous  revelation  of  the 
love  which  the  law  requires.  He  exercises  also  vindicative  or 
retributive  justice  in  asserting,  maintaining  and  enforcing  the  law 
of  love  by  inflicting  punishment  on  transgressors.  In  fact,  be¬ 
cause  this  law  is  eternal  and  absolutely  supreme  in  God,  and  he 
has  constituted  and  is  administering  the  universe  in  conformity 
with  it,  it  follows  that  by  the  very  constitution  and  ongoing  of  the 
universe  the  selfish  man  must  miss  all  true  good ;  it  is  impossible 
for  any  being  to  be  blessed  in  a  life  of  selfishness  in  this  universe 
at  any  time  or  any  place  through  all  eternity  and  immensity. 
And  the  penalty  thus  coming  on  the  sinner  is  in  the  highest  sense 
a  punishment  inflicted  by  God  as  the  expression  of  his  just  con¬ 
demnation  of  sinners  and  disfavor  toward  them  ;  for  the  constitu¬ 
tion  and  ongoing  of  the  universe  are  themselves  the  revelation  of 
God’s  eternal  law  and  the  continuous  expression  of  his  conformity 
with  it  and  obedience  to  it.  And  if  the  punishment  comes 
on  the  sinner  through  the  constitution,  laws  and  ongoing  of  the 
universe  itself,  for  that  very  reason  it  must  be  the  expression  and 
revelation  of  what  is  fundamental  and  dominant  in  the  mind  and 
will,  in  the  thought,  character,  and  purpose  of  God ;  it  must  be  a 
part  of  the  continuous  expression  and  revelation  in  God  of  the 
love  which  the  law  requires  and  which  God  reveals  alike  in  con¬ 
formity  with  the  requirement  and  in  inflicting  the  penalty  which 
the  law  demands. 

It  has  been  a  source  of  much  error  in  theology  that  God’s 
justice  has  been  limited  to  its  third  and  retributive  aspect.  Be- 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  BENEVOLENCE 


299 


cause  thus  limited,  the  other  aspects  of  God’s  justice,  recognizing 
the  eternal  and  absolute  authority  of  the  law  and  conforming  all 
his  action  to  its  requirements,  have  been  overlooked.  The  result 
has  been  that  God’s  justice,  thus  limited  to  retribution,  has  been 
confounded  with  hate  and  vengeance,  and  has  been  conceived 
as  the  arbitrary  and  wrathful  infliction  of  suffering  by  God’s  own 
hand,  entirely  aside  from  the  constitution  and  order  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  and  the  continuous  conformity  of  all  God’s  action  to  the 
requirement  of  the  law  of  love.  This  error  has  been  the  basis 
of  misconceptions  of  the  atonement  which  have  prevailed  in 
the  church  and  of  most  of  the  arguments  against  the  atonement. 
The  result  has  been  that  many,  confounding  these  misconceptions 
with  the  true  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  have  denied  altogether 
that  the  humiliation,  obedience,  suffering,  and  death  of  Christ  have 
any  significance  as  atoning  for  sin,  as  asserting  and  maintaining 
the  authority,  universality,  and  inviolability  of  God’s  law  of  love 
in  his  redemption  of  men  and  his  forgiveness  of  their  sins. 

3.  The  third  aspect  of  righteousness  is  Complacency.  This  has 
often  been  called  the  love  of  complacency  in  distinction  from  the 
love  of  benevolence.  It  corresponds  with  the  third  of  the  funda¬ 
mental  ideas  or  norms  of  reason,  the  Perfect.  It  is  the  consent 
of  the  will  to  perfection.  In  choosing  God  as  the  supreme  ob¬ 
ject  of  trust  and  service  the  will  chooses  perfection  as  the  object 
to  be  realized  in  ourselves  and  others.  It  is  not  the  intellectual 
perception  of  the  perfect,  nor  the  emotion  of  beauty  attending  it. 
It  is  the  free  choice  of  perfection  by  the  will  as  the  end  to  be 
attained  for  one’s  self  and  for  all.  It  is  complacency  in  all  that 
is  beautiful  and  lovely ;  but  pre-eminently  in  moral  and  spiritual 
perfection,  in  the  character  perfected  in  love.  It  is  a  correspond¬ 
ing  displacency  towards  all  that  is  sinful  and  evil.  In  the  con¬ 
templation  of  God,  the  all-perfect,  it  shows  itself  in  adoration 
and  praise,  in  aspiration  and  endeavor  to  be  like  him,  in  longing 
to  commune  with  him.  Towards  human  beings  it  shows  itself  in 
a  similar  way,  in  admiration  of  noble  characters,  in  aspiration  and 
endeavor  to  be  like  them,  and  in  desire  to  associate  with  them. 
It  quickens  also  aspiration  to  realize  perfection  in  ourselves  and 
in  all  our  works.  Michael  Angelo  says  :  “  Nothing  makes  the 
soul  so  pure,  so  religious,  as  trying  to  make  something  perfect ; 
for  God  is  perfection,  and  whoever  strives  for  it  strives  for  some¬ 
thing  godlike.  True  painting  is  only  an  image  of  God’s  perfec- 


300  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


tion  —  a  shadow  of  the  pencil  with  which  he  paints,  a  melody,  a 
striving  after  harmony.” 

George  Eliot  represents  Stradivarius  as  saying  : 

“if  my  hand  slacked, 

I  should  rob  God,  — since  he  is  fullest  good  — 

Leaving  a  blank  instead  of  violins. 

He  could  not  make  Antonio  Stradivari’s  violins 
Without  Antonio.” 

In  God  complacency  cannot  appear  in  aspiration  and  endeavor 
to  be  perfect,  for  his  perfection  is  eternally  complete.  But  he  is 
blessed  in  the  archetypal  ideals  of  all  beauty,  loveliness,  and  per¬ 
fection  eternal  in  his  own  mind  and  progressively  realized  in  the 
finite  by  his  continuous  action  in  space  and  time  ;  he  has  com¬ 
placency  in  all  the  beauty  of  the  creation,  and  the  moral  and 
spiritual  perfection  progressively  realized  by  men  and  angels. 
This  character  of  God,  as  opposed  to  all  pessimism,  is  remarkable 
in  the  account  of  creation  in  Genesis,  where  it  is  repeatedly  and 
emphatically  declared  at  the  successive  steps  in  the  creative  pro¬ 
cess  :  “  And  God  saw  that  it  was  good.”  And  God’s  compla¬ 

cency  in  those  who  are  seeking  spiritual  and  moral  perfection  is 
continually  expressed  in  the  Old  Testament :  “  The  Lord  taketh 
pleasure  in  those  who  fear  him,  in  those  who  hope  in  his  mercy”  ; 
“They  who  are  of  a  froward  heart  are  abomination  to  Jehovah  ; 
but  such  as  are  upright  are  his  delight.”  “  They  shall  be  mine, 
saith  Jehovah  of  hosts,  in  that  day  when  I  make  up  my  jewels.” 
And  the  same  is  clearly  expressed  in  the  New  Testament :  “  For 
the  Father  himself  loveth  you,  because  ye  have  loved  me  and 
have  believed  that  I  came  from  God.”  1 

II.  Benevolence.  —  Love  in  its  other  aspect  is  benevolence,  or 
good-will.  We  have  seen  that  the  love  required  in  God’s  law  is 
the  choice  of  God  as  supreme,  and  of  our  neighbor  equally  with 
ourselves  as  the  object  to  which  all  our  energies  are  to  be  devoted 
in  trust  and  service.  The  question  arises,  What  is  the  service  to 
be  rendered?  In  the  sphere  of  things,  qualities,  and  conditions 
to  be  acquired,  possessed,  and  enjoyed,  what  are  those  which  we 
are  to  seek  for  all  persons  in  our  trust  and  service ;  that  is,  both 
in  our  receptive  and  our  productive  action?  It  is  impossible  to 
answer  in  detail.  The  one  object  comprehending  all  that  has 

1  Gen.  i. ;  Psalm  cxlvii.  n  ;  Prov.  xi.  20;  Malachi  iii.  17  ;  John  xvi.  27. 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  BENEVOLENCE 


301 


true  worth  and  is  worthy  of  the  pursuit  of  a  rational  person,  is  the 
Good  :  it  is  the  highest  perfection  and  well-being  possible  to  be 
attained  in  a  finite  universe.  This  is  the  archetypal  ideal  which 
God  is  progressively  realizing  in  the  creation  and  evolution  of  the 
universe.  All  who  love  God  and  man  devote  their  energies  to 
the  realization  of  the  same  ideal,  thus  working  together  with  God. 
As  Christ  puts  it,  they  are  to  seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and 
his  righteousness,  and  all  other  good  will  be  added.  Love,  as 
seeking  for  all  in  the  whole  sphere  of  personality  the  highest  per¬ 
fection  and  well-being  possible  in  a  finite  universe,  is  benevolence 
or  good-will.  This  very  definition  implies  that  benevolence  is 
regulated  in  its  exercise  by  righteousness  under  immutable  law. 
We  can  promote  the  true  good  only  as  we  act  in  conformity  with 
the  truths  and  laws  of  eternal  reason,  progressively  realizing  its 
archetypal  ideal  of  perfection  and  well-being. 

Benevolence  corresponds  to  the  fourth  fundamental  idea  of 
reason,  the  Good.  Righteousness,  corresponding  to  the  True, 
the  Right,  and  the  Perfect,  has  three  subdivisions.  Benevolence, 
corresponding  to  the  single  idea  of  the  Good,  admits  no  similar 
subdivision. 

Benevolence,  in  all  its  exercise,  is  regulated  by  righteousness. 
The  law  requires  benevolence,  and  determines  what  the  good  is, 
and  what  are  the  right  methods  of  seeking  it.  The  good  to  be 
sought  for  one’s  self  or  for  any  person,  is  not  mere  enjoyment,  the 
gratification  of  the  person’s  appetites,  desires,  and  affections, 
whatever  they  may  be.  That  alone  is  good  or  well-being,  which 
accords  with  the  truths,  laws,  and  ideals  of  reason.1  The  good  is 
that  which,  estimated  by  the  standards  of  reason,  has  true  worth, 
or  is  worthy  of  the  pursuit  of  a  rational  person  in  the  likeness  of 
God.  Any  attempted  benevolence  not  regulated  by  righteousness 
must  defeat  itself  and  cause  evil  instead  of  good.  The  universe 
being  constituted  and  administered  in  conformity  with  the  truths, 
laws,  and  ideals  of  absolute  Reason,  well-being  is  possible  in  it 
only  in  conformity  with  these.  Any  supposed  good  not  in  con¬ 
formity  with  these  would  be  evil,  and  any  methods  of  seeking  it  con¬ 
travening  these  must  fail  of  attaining  it  and  be  productive  of  evil. 
For  these  reasons  benevolence  must  be  regulated  by  righteousness. 
Love  is  benevolence  regulated  by  righteousness. 

Here  we  see  the  necessity  of  wisdom  in  all  Christian  work. 

1  See  “  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,”  chap,  xi.,  pp.  256-285. 


302  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


Wisdom  is  more  than  knowledge.  One  may  have  knowledge  and 
skill  to  adapt  means  to  an  end  ;  but  if  the  end  itself  is  wrong,  the 
man,  however  knowing,  is  not  wise.  One  is  wise  only  when  he 
chooses  both  a  right  end  and  the  right  means  of  attaining  it.  In 
all  personal  culture,  in  the  education  of  the  young,  in  all  attempts 
to  reform  abuses  and  promote  the  progress  of  society,  there  is 
need  of  wisdom  to  ascertain  what  in  any  particular  constitutes 
true  well-being,  and  by  what  means  it  may  be  most  effectively 
attained.  Otherwise  the  educator  or  reformer  may  do  more 
evil  than  good.  And  from  this  point  of  view  we  see  again 
the  importance  of  moral  and  spiritual  education  and  develop¬ 
ment,  and  of  trust  in  God  for  the  quickening  and  guidance  of 
his  Spirit. 

III.  Unity  of  Love  in  its  two  Aspects.  —  Righteousness  and 
benevolence  are  distinguishable  but  inseparable.  They  are  in 
inseparable  unity  as  the  two  aspects  of  love.  Each  is  essential 
to  the  love,  and  the  love  would  no  longer  exist  if  either  was 
lacking. 

Righteousness  cannot  be  the  whole  of  love.  The  assertion 
that  it  is  so  would  shut  us  up  to  the  theory  of  rectitude  already 
refuted.  It  would  shut  us  up  to  the  formal  principle  of  the  law 
without  telling  us  what  the  law  requires  ;  it  would  make  virtue 
consist  in  the  bare  doing  of  duty  defecated  from  all  feeling, 
under  the  categoric  imperative  of  law  excluding  all  spontaneity 
of  love. 

Benevolence  cannot  be  the  whole  of  love.  The  assertion  that 
it  is  so  would  shut  us  up  to  hedonism  in  the  form  of  utilitarianism. 
It  would  exclude  truthfulness,  justice,  and  complacency,  it  would 
exclude  righteousness  from  the  character  of  God,  and  from  the 
right  character  of  man.  Implying  the  denial  that  benevolence  is 
regulated  by  law,  it  would  practically  exclude  the  law,  and  make 
virtue  to  consist  in  that  which  is  lawless ;  or  else  it  must  conceive 
of  the  law  as  something  other  than  the  law  of  love,  and  of  love 
and  law  as  antagonistic  and  reciprocally  exclusive. 

It  was  shown  in  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  that  this  unity 
of  righteousness  and  benevolence  in  love  is  involved  in  the  psy¬ 
chological  definition  of  the  love  required  in  the  law  as  the  choice 
of  God  and  man  as  objects  of  trust  and  service.  This  choice 
terminates  on  a  person  chosen  to  be  trusted  and  served,  not  to  be 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  BENEVOLENCE 


303 


acquired,  possessed,  and  used.  Here  the  question  arises,  What 
service  is  to  be  rendered  to  the  person  loved  ?  The  answer  is  that 
the  service  will  consist  in  promoting  his  good  or  well-being  so  far 
as  it  is  in  our  power.  Good  or  well-being,  with  all  which  as 
really  and  rightly  promoting  it  is  relative  good,  comprehends  all 
which  may  be  legitimately  sought  and  acquired  for  the  person 
loved,  and  be  possessed,  used,  and  enjoyed  by  him.  Here  the 
love  manifests  itself  as  benevolence.  But  the  beneficent  service 
is  required  and  regulated  by  the  truths,  laws,  and  ideals  of  the 
eternal  reason  determining  what  the  good  is,  and  what  are  the 
right  and  wise  methods  and  means  of  attaining  it.  Here  the  love 
manifests  itself  as  righteousness.  And  both  the  righteousness 
and  the  benevolence  are  involved  in  the  love  as  the  choice  of  God 
and  man  as  objects  of  service.  And  in  like  manner  both  are  man¬ 
ifested  in  the  love  that  trusts.  We  choose  God  as  the  supreme 
object  of  trust.  Why  do  we  trust  him  supremely?  Because  he 
is  really  entitled  to  it,  as  the  absolute  and  all-perfect  God,  in  con¬ 
formity  with  the  truths,  requirements,  and  ideals  of  reason.  Here 
is  the  righteousness  ;  in  one  important  sense,  the  righteousness  of 
faith.  And  for  what  do  we  trust  God?  For  guidance  and  help 
in  the  work  of  beneficence,  seeking  the  well-being  of  ourselves 
and  of  all  persons  in  the  moral  system.  In  like  manner  we  put 
our  trust  in  a  man  according  as,  in  the  light  of  reason,  we  judge 
him  worthy  of  our  confidence,  and  thus  the  trust  is  regulated  in 
righteousness.  But  the  trust  is  also  in  the  exercise  of  good-will 
towards  the  person  trusted  as  well  as  for  help  to  ourselves  in  the 
work  of  Christian  love  ;  and  thus,  also,  the  trust  is  a  manifesta¬ 
tion  of  benevolence.  Therefore,  Christian  love,  alike  in  trust  and 
service,  is  benevolence  or  good-will  exercised  in  righteousness 
and  regulated  by  it.  This  is  set  forth  by  Paul :  “  This  I 
pray,  that  your  love  may  abound  yet  more  and  more  in 
knowledge,  and  in  all  discernment ;  so  that  ye  may  approve 
(ascertain)  the  things  that  are  excellent ;  that  ye  may  be  sincere 
and  without  offence,  being  filled  with  the  fruits  of  righteousness  ” 
(Phil.  i.  9-1 1). 

Accordingly,  we  find  both  righteousness  and  benevolence  in 
those  acts  of  love  in  which  one  alone  seems  predominant.  The 
payment  of  a  debt  or  the  fulfilment  of  a  contract  is  commonly 
regarded  as  an  act  of  justice  only.  Yet  benevolence  is  exercised 
in  it ;  the  Christian  in  good-will  to  the  other  party  takes  pleasure 


304  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


in  rendering  a  service  equivalent  to  that  which  he  has  received. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  action  of  the  good  Samaritan,  helping  the 
man  who  had  fallen  among  robbers,  is  commonly  regarded  as  an 
act  of  pure  benevolence.  He  may  have  acted  in  good-will  so 
spontaneous  that  he  never  thought  of  the  act  as  duty ;  but  the 
more  spontaneous  the  action  was  in  love,  the  more  completely 
was  it  in  conformity  with  the  law  of  love.  Thus  it  was  a  deed  of 
righteousness  in  obedience  to  the  law.  Paul  recognizes  both  the 
righteousness  and  the  benevolence  in  his  own  heroic  acts  of  self- 
sacrificing  love  :  “  I  am  debtor  both  to  Greeks  and  to  Barbarians, 
both  to  the  wise  and  to  the  unwise.  So,  as  much  as  in  me  is,  I 
am  ready  to  preach  the  gospel  to  you  who  are  at  Rome  also  ” 
(Rom.  i.  14,  15).  He  recognized  himself  as  debtor,  under 
obligation  of  law  to  all  men  to  render  to  them  the  service  of 
self-sacrificing  benevolence  to  the  utmost  extent  of  his  ability. 
There  can  be  no  act  of  benevolence  so  great  as  to  transcend 
the  law  of  love,  or  to  lift  the  doer  of  it  above  the  obligation  to 
obey  it. 

The  inseparableness  of  righteousness  and  benevolence  in  the 
action  of  love  appears  in  the  fact  that  true  love  to  God  and  man 
is  always  in  antagonism  to  sin.  It  is  righteous  as  well  as  benevo¬ 
lent.  As  such,  love  is  the  great  fighting  principle  in  the  kingdom 
of  Christ,  putting  every  one  who  loves  God  with  all  his  heart  and 
his  neighbor  as  himself  into  perpetual  and  irreconcilable  antago¬ 
nism  to  all  sin  and  to  all  sinners  persisting  in  sin.  “  God  loved 
the  world,  and  in  redemption  his  love  goes  out  to  save  the  lost. 
Sin  cannot  stop  its  efflux  nor  change  its  nature,  though  it  may 
exclude  its  life-giving  efficacy  from  the  sinner’s  heart.  But  God’s 
love  still  rolls  on,  filling  every  creature  according  to  its  capacity 
and  disposition  with  the  fulness  of  God  and  flooding  with  its 
glory  even  the  heart  which  shuts  itself  against  it.  God’s  love 
converging  on  the  sinner,  must  act  like  the  sunshine  on  the  seed, 
and,  failing  to  quicken  it,  hastens  its  corruption.  But  the  love 
remains  pure  love.  All  the  sin  in  the  universe  is  powerless 
to  check  its  outflow,  to  lessen  its  fulness  and  extent,  to  vitiate  its 
divine  purity  and  sweetness,  or  to  infect  it  with  any  taint  of 
malignity  or  ill-will.  When  the  Bible  speaks  of  God’s  hatred 
of  sinners,  it  only  declares  in  popular  language  the  righteousness 
which  is  essential  in  love  and  which  is  in  unchangeable  antago¬ 
nism  to  selfishness  and  sin.  Christ  weeping  over  Jerusalem 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  BENEVOLENCE 


305 


expresses,  under  human  limitations,  the  heart  of  God  in  condemn¬ 
ing  the  wicked ;  the  tears  reveal  his  inextinguishable  good-will, 
while  the  declaration  of  the  inevitable  doom  reveals  his  righteous¬ 
ness.  His  whole  action  in  redemption  is  in  antagonism  to  sin ; 
this  redemption  itself  implies.  But  his  whole  action  is  the  ex¬ 
pression  of  love.” 

“  The  same  must  be  true  of  all  human  antagonism  to  sin.  It 
is  necessary  to  the  possibility  of  antagonism  that  there  be  some 
similarity  of  nature  in  the  antagonists.  A  cannon-ball  cannot 
be  turned  aside  by  argument  or  an  appeal  to  compassion ;  an 
argument  cannot  be  shattered  by  a  bomb-shell,  nor  a  conclusion 
overturned  by  a  lever.  The  only  possible  antagonist  of  error 
is  truth,  and  the  only  possible  antagonist  of  selfishness  is  love. 
Love,  then,  is  the  only  effective  opponent  of  sin.  The  law  of 
the  kingdom  is  :  *  Overcome  evil  with  good.’  ” 

“  In  the  Christian  character,  opposition  to  sin  is  not  primary 
but  secondary.  It  is  not  the  action  but  the  reaction  of  love. 
Religion  does  not  consist  primarily  in  hating  the  devil,  but 
in  loving  God  and  man.  The  opposition  to  sin,  being  a  re¬ 
action  of  love,  must  be  in  its  essence  love.  And  love  in 
every  manifestation  of  it,  whether  by  God  or  man,  must  ex¬ 
clude  selfishness,  ill-will,  hate,  as  light  excludes  darkness. 
While  in  approaching  sinners  it  can  never  divest  itself  of 
righteousness  as  itself  required  in  the  real  principle  of  the  law, 
it  is  still  benevolence.” 

“  And  love  in  its  conflict  with  sin,  and  seeking  to  save  sinners 
from  it,  is  the  highest  and  most  truly  divine  love  in  both  its 
aspects  as  righteousness  and  benevolence.  Love  to  sinners  in 
its  righteous  conflict  with  sin  is  love  in  its  farthest  reach 

and  greatest  power  ;  love  which  even  vileness  and  defiant  iniquity 

/ 

cannot  repel ;  love  embracing  sinners  as  the  sunshine  cherishes 
the  reeking  mould,  in  its  own  absolute  purity  incapable  of  defile¬ 
ment  by  the  contact,  and  quickening  the  seeds  of  life  hidden 
in  the  corruption.  Love  to  sinners  is  the  highest  type  of  love  ; 
it  is  the  love  of  Christ  submerging  himself  in  humanity  and 
bearing  the  sin  of  men  to  save  them  from  it,  yet  revealing  the 
indefectible  purity  and  inviolable  righteousness  of  love  ;  declar¬ 
ing  the  authority  and  majesty  of  the  law,  yet  dying  to  redeem 
sinners  from  its  curse.  Love  to  sinners  is  love  most  distinctively 
imperishable  and  unconquerable  ;  the  vilest  unable  by  his  greatest 
VOL.  11.  —  20 


30 6  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


sins  to  restrain  the  forthcoming  of  that  love,  or  to  check  it 
as  it  goes  on  its  divine  course  of  suffering  and  sorrow,  or  to 
prevent  its  opening  wide  to  the  sinner  the  golden  gates  of  mercy 
and  proclaiming  with  infinite  tenderness,  Whosoever  will,  let  him 
come.  Like  Christ’s  is  every  Christian’s  love.  It  is  love  to 
sinners,  opposing  the  sin  in  righteousness,  seeking  to  draw  the 
sinner  from  his  sins  in  good-will.  However  wicked  a  sinner 
may  become,  he  has  no  power  to  quench  Christian  love  to  him, 
or  to  suppress  it,  as,  imperishable  like  the  love  of  Christ,  it 
breathes  in  prayer,  it  prompts  to  efforts,  to  suffering,  to  sacrifice 
in  opposition  to  sin  and  to  save  the  sinner  from  it.” 

“  Love  is  spiritual  life.  Its  processes  in  its  antagonism  to  sin 
are  analogous  to  those  of  life.  Life  subdues  foreign  matter 
by  transforming  it  into  its  own  organization.  When  an  acorn 
falls  into  the  ground  it  may  be  said  to  enter  into  conflict  with 
all  around  it.  Yet  the  conflict  is  not  the  primary  idea,  but 
secondary  and  incident  to  life.  And  the  living  seed  is  continu¬ 
ally  conquering  in  the  conflict,  not  by  destroying  its  opponents, 
but  by  transforming  them  into  its  own  organization.  Thus  the 
slender  germ  shoots  into  the  upper  air,  and  lifts  itself  in  victory 
over  gravitation,  and  builds  its  great  trunk  and  boughs  and 
crowns  itself  with  leaves,  transforming  the  soil,  the  air,  the  rain, 
into  its  own  organic  strength  and  beauty.  Such  is  the  kingdom 
of  God  ;  a  mustard  seed  growing  into  a  tree,  a  vital  power  of 
God  transforming  the  world  into  a  kingdom  of  righteousness 
and  good-will.” 

“  And  in  this  its  strength  lies.  The  earth  which  lies  heavy 
on  a  seed  cannot  repress  its  pale  and  tender  shoot  rising  with  the 
force  of  life  into  the  air.  So  it  is  with  the  growth  of  the  kingdom 
of  God.  However  ancient  and  solid  any  institution  of  evil, 
it  cannot  repress  the  vital  force  of  love  quickening  any  seed 
of  truth.  Any  reformation  which  is  the  bursting  into  growth 
of  this  vital  force  will  prove  itself  irresistible.” 

“  When  a  vital  organ  is  invaded  by  a  foreign  substance  which 
it  cannot  transform,  it  will  expel  it ;  and  if  it  cannot  expel  it, 
its  resistance  will  be  uncompromising  and  persistent  until  death. 
When  a  speck  of  dust  enters  the  eye,  the  eye  resists  with  weep¬ 
ing  and  expels  it ;  and  will  itself  perish,  resisting  and  weeping, 
if  it  cannot  expel  the  intruder.  So  prompt,  uncompromising, 
and  persistent  is  the  resistance  of  love  in  righteousness  to  sin, 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  BENEVOLENCE 


307 


resistance  with  weeping  and  suffering  benevolence,  and,  if  it  does 
not  prevail,  persistent  unto  death.”  1 

I  have  already  alluded  to  the  current  error  of  excluding  justice 
from  love  and  putting  it  into  antithesis  and  even  into  antagonism 
to  love.  And  commonly  those  who  advocate  this  error  make  no 
distinction  between  justice  and  righteousness  and  often  limit  jus¬ 
tice  to  the  infliction  of  penalty.  Some  of  them  carry  the  error 
very  far.  They  set  forth  misconceptions,  which  at  different  times 
in  the  course  of  the  Christian  ages  have  grown  as  excrescences 
on  the  ideas  of  God’s  moral  government,  law,  and  justice,  as  the 
essential  significance  of  these  realities.  They  represent  these  as 
anthropomorphic  conceptions  derived  from  human  government 
and  law,  which  ought  not  to  be  ascribed  to  God  in  his  dealings 
with  men.  They  thus  imply  that  the  very  ideas  of  moral  gov¬ 
ernment,  law,  and  justice  are  to  be  banished  from  theology. 
H.  W.  Beecher,  in  a  published  letter  to  Rev.  J.  Spencer  Ken- 
nard,  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that,  according  to  the  common  repre¬ 
sentation  of  God’s  justice,  hatred  is  the  central  element  in  the 
idea  of  God’s  moral  government.  “  The  root  of  the  whole 
matter  with  me  is,  in  a  word,  this  :  Which  is  the  central  element 
of  moral  government  — •  love  or  hatred  ?  I  say  hatred,  for  in 
human  hands  that  is  what  justice  has  largely  amounted  to.” 
Instead  of  the  love  which  acts  in  righteousness  and  benevolence, 
writers  of  this  type  would  substitute  mere  benevolence  not  regu¬ 
lated  by  righteousness,  a  boneless  jelly  of  good  nature  yielding  to 
every  pressure.  Mr.  Beecher  says,  “True  justice’s  primitive  form 
is  simply  pain,  and  this  suffering  is  simply  auxiliary,  pedagogic, 
the  schoolmaster  until  men  are  enough  developed  to  work  by 
love.”  Justice  is  thus  regarded  as  a  benevolent  infliction  of  pain 
for  disciplinary  and  educational  ends.  Instead  of  recognizing 
law  as  at  the  basis  of  the  constitution  of  the  universe  and  regula¬ 
tive  of  all  its  on-going  and  all  God’s  action  as  in  exact  conformity 
with  it,  writers  of  this  type  regard  law  and  justice  as  belonging  to 
a  condition  of  immaturity  which  is  temporary  and  transient,  des¬ 
tined  to  pass  away  and  give  place  to  the  life  and  work  of  love. 
Love  they  regard  as  antagonistic  to  law  and  justice,  which  must 
necessarily  supersede  and  set  them  aside  when  it  acquires  con¬ 
trol  of  the  life.  But  love  does  not  supersede  law,  it  is  the 

1  “  The  Kingdom  of  Christ  on  Earth,”  by  Samuel  Harris,  pp.  39-42. 
Andover,  W.  F.  Draper. 


308  the  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


essence  of  all  obedience  to  it.  It  is  remarkable  that  these  writers 
seem  always  to  forget  that  the  law  itself  is  the  law  of  love,  and 
that  conformity  with  God’s  law  is  possible  only  in  the  life  and 
work  of  love. 

This  erroneous  type  of  thought  appears  as  early  as  the  time  of 
Marcion  in  the  second  century.  Marcion  held  that  God’s  love 
lacks  righteousness ;  that  it  is  in  antithesis  to  righteousness  and 
exclusive  of  it ;  that,  from  his  unwillingness  to  punish,  God  wills 
neither  law  nor  justice.  But  if  God  is  not  the  giver  of  the  law 
by  which  the  universe  is  constituted  and  ordered,  he  cannot  be 
the  creator  in  the  full  meaning  of  the  word ;  he  cannot  be  the 
eternal  source  of  all  truth,  law,  and  perfection ;  nor  can  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  suffering  be  accounted  for  as  in  any  sense  the  result 
of  God’s  action  or  included  in  his  plan  ;  if  indeed  a  lawless  being 
could  have  any  plan.  Marcion,  therefore,  found  himself  obliged 
to  carry  the  separation  of  love  and  justice  so  far  as  to  put  justice, 
the  requirement  of  conformity  with  law  as  essential  to  well-being, 
entirely  outside  the  good  God  and  to  hypostasize  it  in  a  Demi¬ 
urge,  as  Deus  saevus ,  the  God  of  justice,  in  antagonism  to  the 
god  of  love.  This  would  seem  to  be  a  necessary  inference,  and, 
therefore,  a  reduction  of  this  theory  to  absurdity.  Theodore 
Beza  undertook  to  correct  this  error  by  carrying  the  still  unre¬ 
solved  antithesis  of  grace  and  justice  into  the  Godhead,  and  so 
establishing  an  eternal  duality  and  antinomy  in  God’s  own  moral 
perfection.  This  again  is  a  sort  of  reductio  ad  absurdum .  As 
Hartmann  says :  “  For  a  unitary  apprehension,  which  accepts 
justice  and  grace  only  as  different  but  consonant  sides  of  the 
theological  world-order,  such  a  conflict  between  justice  and  grace, 
in  which  justice  is  worsted,  is  quite  unthinkable.”  1 

The  only  solution  of  the  problem  is  the  recognition  of  right¬ 
eousness  and  benevolence  in  unity  and  harmony  as  the  two  essen¬ 
tial  aspects  of  the  love  which  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law.  This 
gives  the  true  significance  of  God’s  moral  government  and  law, 
of  his  righteousness  and  benevolence,  and  of  his  love,  exscinds 
all  the  excrescences  of  error  which  have  grown  on  it  like  fungi, 
presents  righteousness  and  benevolence,  without  abrading  any¬ 
thing  from  the  essence  of  either  in  order  to  reconcile  them,  each 
in  its  highest  significance  and,  therefore,  in  complete  unity  and 
harmony  in  the  vital  essence  of  universal  love.  As  Nitzsch  says : 

1  “Die  Religion  des  Geistes,”  B.,  p.  173. 


RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  BENEVOLENCE 


309 


11  Love  is  a  holy  and  righteous  love  ;  for  righteousness,  by  which 
the  bad  is  ever  separated  from  the  good,  by  which  justice  is  re¬ 
vealed  in  the  highest  development  as  the  giving  of  law  and  sin 
is  judged,  is  not  excluded  from  love,  but  is  in  it  and  from  it.”  1 
This  union  of  good-will  and  righteousness  in  the  love  required  by 
the  law  is  beautifully  and  poetically  expressed  by  the  Psalmist : 
“  Mercy  and  truth  are  met  together ;  Righteousness  and  peace 
have  kissed  each  other  ”  (lxxxv.  10). 

1  “  Christliche  Lehre,”  §  136,  p.  272.  See  also  §  80,  note  2;  and  Dorner, 
“Christliche  Glaubenslehre,”  vol.  i.  §  29,  2,  p.  351  ;  Transl.  vol.  i.  p.  365. 


CHAPTER  XXV 


LOVE  MANIFESTED  IN  TRUST  AND  SERVICE 

The  next  step  in  the  analysis  of  the  love  required  in  the  law  is 
to  consider  the  two  lines  of  action  in  which  it  must  be  exercised. 
All  human  action  is  in  the  two  lines  of  reception  and  production. 
In  finite  beings  the  reception  must  always  precede  the  production. 
God  alone  can  produce  without  having  previously  received ;  he 
alone  can  act  without  dependence  on  another. 

.The  object  of  the  love  required  in  God’s  law  is  always  a  per¬ 
son  or  persons.  The  love  is  the  choice  of  a  person  or  persons  as 
the  object  of  the  whole  activity ;  to  whom  the  whole  activity 
is  to  be  directed.  Because  all  activity  is  in  the  two  lines  of 
reception  and  production,  taking  in  and  putting  forth,  love  is  the 
choice  of  a  person  as  the  object  both  of  the  receptive  and  the 
productive  action.  From  the  person  loved  we  receive  or  take 
in ;  for  him  we  produce  or  give  forth. 

The  receptive  action  in  which  love  manifests  itself  is  trust.  It 
is  the  act  of  looking  to  a  person  for  help,  to  receive  from  him 
that  which  supplies  our  need.  Acts  of  trust  imply  man’s  con¬ 
sciousness  of  limitation,  need,  dependence. 

The  productive  action  in  which  love  to  any  person  manifests 
itself  is  service  rendered  to  the  person ;  it  is  putting  forth  energy, 
imparting,  achieving  for  the  person  loved.  Acts  of  service  imply 
man’s  consciousness  of  power,  will,  freedom. 

The  love  to  God  with  all  the  heart,  required  by  the  law,  is  the 
free  choice  of  him  as  the  supreme  object  of  both  trust  and  service. 
Love  to  the  neighbor,  required  in  the  law,  is  the  free  choice  of 
him  as,  equally  with  ourselves  in  the  moral  system  and  under  the 
government  of  God,  the  object  of  trust  and  service.  The  love  of 
self  required  in  the  law  is  the  free  choice  of  self  as,  equally  with 


LOVE  MANIFESTED  IN  TRUST  AND  SERVICE  3 1  I 


our  neighbor  in  the  moral  system  and  under  the  government  of 
God,  the  object  of  both  trust  and  service. 

The  love  required  in  the  law  must  manifest  itself  in  these  two 
lines  of  action,  trust  and  service.  There  is  no  other  line  of 
voluntary  human  action  in  which  this  love  can  find  expression. 

I.  Love  Manifested  in  Acts  of  Trust.  —  It  is  a  common 
error  to  regard  the  whole  of  moral  action  and  character  as  belong¬ 
ing  to  productivity,  the  putting  forth  of  one’s  own  energies  in 
work  and  achievement.  This  issues  in  one-sidedness  and  super¬ 
ficiality  in  ethics.  It  overlooks  the  whole  receptive  side  of  human 
character  and  action ;  forgets  that  this  is  fundamental  and  that  all 
productiveness  is  conditioned  on  it ;  excludes  faith  from  love  ;  and 
stumbles  at  the  scriptural  representations  of  the  essentiality  and 
vital  importance  of  faith  in  right  moral  and  religious  character. 

1.  So  far  as  faith  is  moral  character  or  action  it  is  a  choice  or 
determination  of  the  will,  and  in  its  essence  as  such  it  is  trust. 
Faith  is  sometimes  used  in  philosophy  to  denote  spontaneous 
knowledge  or  belief  which  does  not  rest  on  proof ;  as  thus  used 
it  includes  all  self-evident  universal  truths  and  rational  intuitions. 
It  ought  to  include  also  all  immediate  presentative  or  perceptive 
intuitions.  Accordingly,  as  we  have  seen,  all  scientific  knowledge 
of  the  physical  universe  begins  in  faith  and  rests  on  it  as  really  as 
the  knowledge  of  moral  distinctions  and  of  God.  With  faith  in 
this  sense  we  are  not  here  concerned,  but  only  with  faith  as  an 
element  of  moral  character  manifested  in  moral  action.  In  this 
application  of  the  word,  faith  is  essentially  trust. 

Trust  presupposes  knowledge  or  belief.  “  He  who  cometh  to 
God  must  believe  that  he  is,  and  that  he  is  a  rewarder  of  them 
who  diligently  seek  him.”  Voluntary  trust  in  any  person  is 
inconceivable  without  some  knowledge  or  belief  as  to  the  person 
who  is  trusted.  But  this  is  merely  a  necessarily  antecedent  con¬ 
dition  of  the  act  of  trust ;  it  is  the  light  in  which  the  will  deter¬ 
mines, —  not  the  trust  itself.  Faith,  therefore,  as  moral  character 
and  action,  is  not  an  assent  of  the  intellect  but  the  consent  of  the 
will.  It  is  a  person’s  free  voluntary  act  trusting  himself  or  some 
interest  of  himself  to  a  person  for  protection  and  safe-keeping, 
for  guidance,  for  additional  strength,  for  help  of  some  sort.  If 
the  trust  is  to  another,  the  action  of  the  other  in  our  behalf  is 
necessarily  substitutional ;  the  person  trusts  another  to  do  for 


312  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


him  and  in  his  stead  what  he  cannot  or  will  not  do  for  himself. 
The  Bible  represents  faith  in  God,  not  only  as  an  element  in 
moral  character  and  action,  but  as  the  beginning  of  all  right 
character  and  the  continuous  source  of  all  right  conduct.  As 
thus  represented,  while  it  presupposes  knowledge  and  motive 
feeling,  it  is  not  in  its  essence  an  intellectual  belief  nor  a  feeling, 
but  a  choice  or  determination  of  the  will.  It  is  the  act  of  trust. 
In  this  discussion  I  shall  use  trust  as  expressing  the  essential 
ethical  significance  of  faith. 

Faith,  therefore,  is  not  passive.  It  is  receptive  indeed,  but  it 
is  an  active  and  willing  receiving.  It  is  the  act  of  a  person  seek¬ 
ing  help  and  willingly  laying  hold  of  it  and  using  it.  The  recep¬ 
tion  may  involve  the  highest  energy ;  as  when  one  ready  to  drown 
lays  hold  of  the  rope  thrown  to  him,  or  one  clings  to  a  tree  or 
climbs  a  high  rock  to  escape  from  a  flood.  The  receptive  act 
is  not  analogous  to  the  passivity  of  a  cistern  receiving  water 
poured  into  it,  but  to  the  activity  of  a  plant  sucking  in  nutriment 
from  the  air,  the  soil,  and  the  rain  and  converting  it  into  its  own 
tissues  and  so  bearing  fruit ;  or  to  the  activity  of  a  scholar  appro¬ 
priating  and  assimilating  the  instruction  and  discipline  of  the 
teacher ;  or  to  the  activity  of  an  Alpine  climber  receiving  the 
direction  and  assistance  of  the  guide.  So  faith  in  Christ  is  de¬ 
scribed  as  u  accepting  Christ  as  he  is  offered  in  the  gospel.” 

This  accords  with  the  representation  of  faith  in  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  as  the  condition  of  justification  and  the  beginning  of  a 
Christian  character ;  it  always  carries  in  it  the  idea  of  trust. 
This  is  recognized  in  the  definition  of  7tlctt€v(jo  by  Grimm  and  his 
translator  Thayer,  as  well  as  by  other  lexicographers  of  the  New 
Testament.  In  the  seventh  revised  and  enlarged  edition  of 
Liddell  and  Scott’s  lexicon,  in  Cremer’s  Biblico-theological  lexicon 
of  New  Testament  Greek,  and  in  Sophocles’  lexicon  of  Byzantine 
Greek,  trust  is  given  as  the  first  and  primary  meaning.  In  Greek, 
as  in  English,  the  phrase,  to  believe  in  a  person,  denotes  confi¬ 
dence  or  trust  in  him  ;  as  when  one  says  he  believes  in  a  physi¬ 
cian,  in  a  party-leader,  or  a  statesman.  In  the  Old  Testament 
the  word  “  trust  ”  is  commonly  used  and  is  the  proper  translation  of 
the  Hebrew.  Trust  in  God  is  the  dominant  quality  in  the  most 
remarkable  historical  representatives  of  faith,  both  in  the  Old 
Testament  and  in  the  New.  Abraham  and  Paul  are  instances. 
The  same  significance  is  prominent  in  the  figurative  representa- 


LOVE  MANIFESTED  IN  TRUST  AND  SERVICE  313 


tions  of  faith  in  Christ  and  in  God,  —  as  coming  to  Christ,  receiving 
Christ,  committing  one’s  self  to  him,  looking  to  him,  abiding  in 
him,  staying  one’s  self  on  God.  Accordingly  trust  is  commonly 
recognized  by  theologians  as  of  the  essence  of  justifying  faith. 
They  have  recognized  it  as  implying  notitia ,  assensus,  fiducia  ; 
knowledge,  intellectual  assent  or  belief,  and  trust.  Knowledge  of 
God,  especially  as  revealed  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto 
himself,  is  presupposed  in  faith.  Intellectual  assent  is  presup¬ 
posed  as  belief  of  God’s  word,  especially  of  his  promises  as  the 
redeemer  of  men,  in  Christ  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  from  sin  and 
condemnation.  Trust  is  the  action  of  the  will,  in  the  light  of  this 
knowledge  and  belief,  accepting  God  in  Christ  as  offered  in  the 
gospel  and  committing  ourselves  and  all  our  interests  to  him  as 
our  redeemer  from  sin.  Accordingly  the  Westminster  Confession 
defines  faith  as  accepting,  receiving,  and  resting  on  Christ.  The 
“  Heidelberg  Catechism  ”  says,  “  Faith  is  also  a  cordial  trust.” 
Professor  Charles  Hodge  says  :  “  The  primary  idea  of  faith  is 
trust . This  view  of  the  nature  of  faith  is  all  but  univer¬ 

sally  received,  not  by  theologians  alone,  but  by  philosophers  and 
the  mass  of  Christian  people.”1 

2.  That  the  love  which  is  the  essence  of  all  right  character 
must  begin  and  go  on  by  faith  is  in  accordance  with  the  universal 
law  of  all  finite  power,  that  there  can  be  no  production  without 
preceding  reception. 

This  is  a  law  of  mechanics.  Whatever  does  any  work  must 
first  receive  the  force  by  which  it  works ;  it  can  act  only  as  it  is 
first  acted  on.  The  train  on  a  railroad  is  moved  by  the  traction 
of  the  engine ;  the  engine  is  moved  by  the  force  of  the  piston ; 
this  derives  its  force  from  the  steam ;  the  force  of  steam  comes 
from  the  coal,  liberated  by  heat ;  the  force  stored  in  the  coal 
came  from  the  sun.  And  whatever  may  be  the  second  causes 
sustaining  the  heat  of  the  sun,  the  energy  must  always  be  com¬ 
municated  from  a  preceding  agent,  till  at  last  we  find  its  originat¬ 
ing  source  only  in  the  absolute,  the  unconditioned,  the  power 
underived  and  eternal,  that  is  God. 

1  “  There  is  only  one  word  for  faith  in  all  these  languages  (of  the  primi¬ 
tive  Aryans),  and  it  always  stands  for  trust  and  respect.  Its  first  meaning, 
like  that  of  religion,  is  really  that  which  unites  to  the  divinity.  Prayer  is 
described  by  the  same  word,  whether  it  is  addressed  to  gods  or  men.” 
(Pressense,  “The  Ancient  World  and  Christianity,”  p.  119.) 


314  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


The  same  is  the  law  of  organic  life.  This  is  the  analogy  used 
by  Christ  in  the  parable  of  the  vine  and  its  branch  :  “  As  the 
branch  cannot  bear  fruit  of  itself,  except  it  abide  in  the  vine,  so 
neither  can  ye,  except  ye  abide  in  me.”  The  branch  derives  its 
nourishment  and  its  productive  power  from  the  vine,  the  vine 
from  the  soil,  the  atmosphere,  the  rain,  the  sunshine.  Every 
plant  and  every  animal  is  a  centre  on  which  all  the  physical  forces 
of  the  universe  act  continuously,  sustaining  its  life  and  growth. 
Every  living  organism  has  derived  its  life  from  a  pre-existing  life. 
And  if  evolution  is  a  fact,  the  higher  species  have  been  evolved 
from  the  lower  till  we  go  back  to  the  origin  of  life  and  find  our¬ 
selves  face  to  face  with  God.  From  every  living  creature  as  a 
centre  the  thought  follows  all  the  lines  of  energy  centring  on  it 
and  can  rest  only  in  God,  who  alone  has  life  in  himself  and  is  the 
ultimate  source  of  all  life. 

Thus  the  doctrine,  that  in  the  sphere  of  moral  and  religious 
life,  faith  or  trust  is  the  beginning  and  the  continuous  inspiration 
of  all  right  action  and  character,  is  analogous  to  the  scientific 
doctrine  of  the  relation  of  reception  to  production  in  the  mechan¬ 
ism  and  the  organic  life  of  the  physical  system.  It  is  an  analogy 
often  used  in  various  applications  by  Christ,  in  explaining  the 
nature  of  his  kingdom.  But  it  is  analogy,  not  identity  nor  exact 
likeness.  In  mere  physical  mechanism  and  organism  there  can 
be  no  trust  and  service  manifesting  moral  and  religious  character, 
because  there  is  no  intelligent  free  will.  But  alike  in  the  physical 
system  and  the  moral  it  is  a  universal  law  that  reception  and  pro¬ 
duction  are  the  only  lines  of  action  possible  to  finite  beings ;  and 
reception  must  precede  production.  By  production  I  mean  the 
causing  of  effects  by  the  exertion  of  power  or  energy ;  what 
scientists  call  work,  and  what  in  moral  life  the  New  Testament 
designates  by  the  same  name,  works ,  to  distinguish  it  from  the 
receptive  action  of  faith  or  trust. 

In  mechanical  action  and  organic  life  there  is  a  double  depend¬ 
ence  ;  physical  agents  are  dependent  for  their  being  and  their 
constitutional  powers  and  susceptibilities,  and  also  for  the  force, 
impulse,  and  direction  communicated  from  their  environment. 
This  double  dependence  has  its  analogy  in  the  sphere  of  moral 
and  religious  life.  Neither  men  nor  angels  are  self-existent. 
They  derive  their  being  and  their  constitutional  powers  and 
susceptibilities  from  God  and  are  continuously  dependent  on  him 


LOVE  MANIFESTED  IN  TRUST  AND  SERVICE  315 


for  existence.  “  In  him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.” 
And  in  the  moral  system  he  is  the  eternal  source  of  all  truth,  law, 
perfection,  and  good,  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service ; 
the  God  with  whom  we  have  to  do  in  all  moral  action ;  and  only 
in  communion  and  fellowship  with  him  is  a  right  moral  and 
religious  character  possible.  All  right  character  presupposes 
that  he  has  revealed  himself  to  men,  is  graciously  willing  on  his 
part  to  receive  their  trust  and  service,  anticipates  all  their  seek¬ 
ing  him  by  his  seeking  them,  imparting  the  light  of  his  wisdom  to 
guide  and  the  warmth  of  his  love  to  quicken  and  inspire  them  to 
love  God  with  all  their  heart  and  their  neighbor  as  themselves 
and  thereby  to  attain  their  true  well-being.  Thus  they  are  de¬ 
pendent  on  him  for  continued  communication  of  divine  moral 
and  spiritual  influences  fitted  to  induce  the  free  will  to  trust  in 
God  and  to  serve  him,  and  so  to  quicken  and  develop  them  in 
the  life  of  love  and  to  form  them  into  the  moral  likeness  of  God, 
who  is  love. 

In  the  sphere  of  human  free  agency  the  law  that  reception  and 
production  are  the  only  lines  of  action  and  that  reception  must 
precede  production  is  continually  exemplified  in  the  ordinary 
life  of  man.  A  person  in  solitude  cannot  realize  his  normal 
development.  Every  one  is  continually  dependent  on  others 
to  receive  from  them  what  he  cannot  do  for  himself.  In  the 
daily  action  of  life  man  lives  by  faith.  Faith  or  trust  is  the  bond 
of  society.  Without  its  continual  exercise  society  would  be 
disintegrated,  civilization  and  even  the  existence  of  men  in 
communities  of  any  kind  would  be  impossible.  When  one  orders 
his  dinner  and  goes  home  at  the  dinner  hour  expecting  to  find 
it  on  the  table  he  acts  by  faith  in  many  persons.  When  he  travels 
it  is  only  by  trusting  his  life  and  property  to  many  others.  When 
he  builds,  or  engages  in  mercantile  business,  or  works  by  the  day, 
or  goes  on  a  pleasure  excursion,  every  hour  and  in  every  transac¬ 
tion,  in  all  business  and  in  all  pleasure  he  acts  and  lives  by  faith. 
The  great  economical  principle  of  the  division  of  labor  rests 
on  the  limitations  and  dependence  of  man  and  the  consequent 
necessity  of  living  by  faith,  by  trusting  others  to  do  for  him  what 
he  cannot  do  for  himself. 

A  further  exemplification  of  this  law  is  found  in  the  natural 
affections  which  bind  men  together  in  families  and  in  larger 
associations.  Man  lives  by  being  loved  as  really  as  by  loving,  — 


31 6  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

by  receiving  as  really  as  by  rendering  service,  —  by  faith  as  really 
as  by  work.  A  babe  derives  its  life  from  its  parents.  When 
it  comes  into  a  house,  by  its  very  helplessness  it  takes  command 
of  the  household  and  receives  the  loving  ministry  of  all.  It  is 
born  into  an  atmosphere  of  love.  It  lives  by  being  loved.  And 
after  it  is  sufficiently  developed  to  know  those  who  tend  it,  its 
life  for  a  long  time  is  chiefly  a  life  of  dependence  and  trust. 
There  is  no  more  striking  illustration  of  faith  than  a  little  child’s 
faith  in  its  father  and  mother,  which  our  Saviour  used.  It  is 
taken  with  them  on  a  journey ;  it  knows  not  whither  it  is  going 
nor  how  long  it  is  to  travel ;  it  goes  out  with  them,  like  Abraham 
under  the  call  of  God,  not  knowing  whither.  But  amid  whatever 
new  and  strange  scenes,  it  is  peaceful  and  contented  so  long 
as  its  parents  are  with  it,  trusting  fearlessly  in  them.  And,  as 
the  babe  is  born  into  an  atmosphere  of  love,  so  all  our  lives  long 
we  live  by  being  loved.  We  strike  our  roots  into  the  hearts  of 
our  fellows  and  suck  up  their  best  affections.  Life  would  be 
insupportable  for  a  person  whom  no  one  loves.  Probably  no 
such  wretch  exists  on  earth.  But  when  we  nourish  our  souls 
with  love  given  us  by  others,  the  giving  does  not  impoverish. 
The  love  that  trusts  is  returned  for  the  love  that  gives  and  serves. 
The  parents’  love  grows  by  loving  and  imparting  as  really  as 
the  child’s  love  grows  by  loving  and  receiving.  Love  is  like  the 
sunshine,  never  dimmed  by  being  used,  but  ever  pouring  its 
inexhaustible  light  and  warmth  on  all  who  receive  it.  Love 
is  the  marvellous  power  which  is  not  lessened  by  giving,  nor 
wasted  by  exercise,  which  may  spend  itself  forever  on  its  object 
and  not  be  spent  but  only  greatened. 

The  same  law  of  reception  and  production  is  true  of  the 
spiritual  life  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  When  the  Scriptures  teach 
that  all  right  spiritual  life  must  begin  and  continuously  go  on  by 
faith  in  God,  it  only  declares  of  man  in  his  relation  to  God 
a  law  of  all  finite  beings  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  and 
in  every  sphere  of  action.  Much  more  must  it  be  true  of  man 
in  his  immediate  relations  to  God  in  the  religious  life.  God 
is  the  spiritual  environment  of  the  finite  spirit.  Man  is  “  capax 
divini,”  capable  of  participating  in  the  divine  (2  Pet.  i.  4).  He 
must  draw  his  spiritual  life  and  growth,  his  spiritual  productive¬ 
ness,  from  God  as  really  as  a  plant  must  draw  its  nourishment 
from  its  physical  environment.  He  can  no  more  grow  to 


LOVE  MANIFESTED  IN  TRUST  AND  SERVICE  3 1 7 


the  perfection  of  his  being  and  attain  his  highest  power  of 
achievement  and  production  without  faith  in  God  than  a  plant 
can  grow  when  pulled  up  by  the  roots  and  removed  from  its 
proper  environment  which  sustains  its  life.  We  commonly  think 
of  Paul  as  expending  all  his  energies  in  serving  others.  But 
those  mighty  energies  of  service  were  fed  by  faith  in  God.  He 
says:  “Who  loved  me  and  gave  himself  forme.”  In  this  and 
similar  sayings  we  find  this  hero  of  Christian  service  feeding  his 
own  soul  and  nourishing  its  spiritual  force  by  receiving  God’s 
love  to  him.  Thus  he  lived  by  being  loved;  he  lived  by  faith, 
receiving  God’s  grace.  We  are  all  born  into  the  household 
of  God  and  the  atmosphere  of  God’s  love.  But  it  depends 
on  our  own  free  will  whether  we  accept  his  love.  If  we  trust 
him  we  therein  strike  our  roots  into  the  very  heart  of  God 
and  receive  for  our  own  spiritual  life  and  growth  his  eternal  love, 
the  love  set  forth  in  Christ,  dying  to  save  sinners  from  their 
sin. 

Though  every  one  is  born  into  the  atmosphere  of  God’s  love, 
in  the  exercise  of  his  own  free  will  he  may  close  his  heart  against 
it  in  self-sufficiency  and  self-glorifying,  in  self-will  and  self-seek¬ 
ing.  He  may  refuse  to  live  by  being  loved  and  set  himself  up 
as  sufficient  for  himself.  From  this  point  of  view  we  see  again 
the  essential  nature  of  sin  as  the  soul’s  wilful  separation  of  itself 
from  God  and  isolation  of  itself  in  itself,  and  its  necessarily  conse¬ 
quent  shrivelling  in  spiritual  dryness  and  death.  As  such,  sin 
itself  is  “  the  great  gulf  fixed  ”  which  separates  the  sinner  from 
God.  It  is  only  by  turning  away  from  sin  that  the  sinner 
can  return  to  God  and  come  again  into  union  with  him.  And 
because  sin  is  fundamentally  self-sufficiency,  the  only  way  of 
returning  to  God,  which  in  the  nature  of  things  is  possible,  is  by 
faith.  This  also  our  Saviour  illustrates  by  the  parable  of  the 
branch  and  the  vine.  If  we  conceive  of  the  branch  as  intelli¬ 
gent  and  having  free  will,  it  might  become  impatient  of  its 
dependence  on  the  vine  ;  it  might,  therefore,  close  the  pores 
through  which  it  receives  sap  from  the  vine  and  set  up  for  itself 
as  competent  to  produce  grapes  without  dependence  on  the  vine. 
The  result  must  be  that  it  will  wither  and  dry  up,  and  eventually 
will  fall  from  the  vine  and  be  fit  only  to  be  burned.  So  by  iso¬ 
lating  himself  from  God  in  self-sufficiency  the  sinner  closes  all 
the  avenues  of  communication  from  God,  the  source  of  all  right 


3 1 8  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

spiritual  life.  Therefore  he  must  fail  to  realize  the  true  ends 
of  his  being  and  must  wither  in  spiritual  dryness  and  deadness* 
and  so,  according  to  the  nature  of  things,  he  becomes  no  longer 
susceptible  of  good,  but  only  of  evil. 

Here  the  question  arises.  Can  the  sinner  be  restored  to  union 
with  God  and  to  the  true  and  fruitful  life  in  him  ?  This  is  possi¬ 
ble  only  on  two  conditions.  One  is  that  God  be  willing  to 
receive  the  returning  sinner  and  seek  him  in  his  alienation  with 
gracious  influences  to  induce  him  to  return  to  himself  and  to 
trust  him.  Without  this  gracious  disposition  and  action  of  God 
the  sinner  could  not  rectify  himself ;  for  the  beginning  of  all 
right  character  must  be  the  sinner’s  trusting  in  God  and  accept¬ 
ing  his  grace.  But  he  cannot  receive  God’s  favor  and  his 
gracious  and  quickening  influence  unless  God  is  already  gra¬ 
ciously  disposed.  And  this  prevenient  graciousness  of  God  is 
revealed  in  Christ ;  and  in  the  Holy  Spirit  it  is  in  the  world 
as  a  power  of  redeeming  grace  to  draw  men  away  from  sin 
to  God.  The  other  condition  is  that  the  sinner  willingly  trust 
in  God,  opening  his  heart  to  receive  the  divine  grace  which 
brings  the  agencies  and  influences  of  redemption.  God  being 
graciously  disposed  toward  the  sinner,  nothing  prevents  his 
return  to  God  except  his  own  choice  of  self  as  the  supreme 
object  of  trust  and  service,  and  the  character  developed  from  it. 

What  danger  is  there,  then,  that  any  sinner  will  fail  to  be 
restored  to  the  life  of  love  ?  The  danger  is  in  the  fact  that  char¬ 
acter  is  formed  and  confirmed  by  action.  The  sinner  may  persist 
in  the  life  of  selfishness  till  his  character  becomes  fixed,  so  that 
no  moral  influence  will  ever  induce  him  to  change.  And,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  nature  of  things,  no  physical  force,  only  the  person 
himself  under  moral  influence  and  in  the  exercise  of  his  own  free 
will  can  change  his  own  free  supreme  choice,  which  is  moral 
character  in  its  primary  meaning.  God’s  love  is,  like  the  sun¬ 
shine,  all-encompassing  and  free  to  all.  Each  may  use  it  in  all 
its  fulness  without  withdrawing  any  of  it  from  another.  But  the 
sinner  in  his  self-sufficiency  may  persist  in  refusing  to  accept  and 
trust  it  till  his  character  becomes  fixed,  and  all  the  influences  of 
God’s  love  forever  beating  on  him  are  as  ineffective  to  induce 
him  to  change  as  the  ever-encompassing  sunshine  to  melt  a  rock. 
The  determining  preventive  of  salvation  is  never  in  God,  but 
always  in  the  sinner.  Here  we  may  return  to  the  parable  of  the 


LOVE  MANIFESTED  IN  TRUST  AND  SERVICE  319 


branch.  After  a  scion  has  been  cut  off  it  may,  under  proper  con¬ 
ditions  be  kept  a  long  time  without  losing  its  capacity  to  live  if 
grafted  in  again.  Within  that  period,  should  it  return  to  the  tree, 
it  might  find  the  place  of  its  excision  cicatrized  and  incapable 
of  receiving  it  back.  But,  behold,  the  tree  gives  up  under  the 
grafter’s  knife  one  of  its  own  living  branches,  that  in  the  bleeding 
wound  the  returning  scion  may  be  grafted  in  and  live.  Then 
gladly  will  it  renounce  the  straw  wrappings  on  which  it  had 
depended  for  a  precarious  life,  and  trust  its  whole  being  to  the 
living  tree  which  pours  freely  its  own  life  into  it.  But  if  its  rein¬ 
sertion  is  delayed  too  long,  there  comes  a  time  when  its  vitality 
is  gone  and  no  skill  of  the  gardener  can  make  it  live  dgain.  So  a 
sinner  may  go  far  in  sin  and  yet  be  restored  to  union  with  God, 
and  live  and  be  productive  in  him.  God  in  Christ  opens  his  own 
wounded  and  bleeding  side  to  give  life  to  the  vilest  sinner  who 
returns  from  his  isolation  and  trusts  himself  to  God’s  redeeming 
and  life-giving  love.  But  if  the  sinner  persists  in  refusing  God’s 
grace  and  resisting  his  Spirit,  there  comes  a  time  when  God  sees 
that  he  is  hopelessly  hardened  in  sin,  and  that  all  moral  influence 
for  good,  even  all  influence  of  God’s  love,  would  be  expended  on 
him  in  vain.  This  is  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Spirit,  of  which 
Christ  says  that  it  has  never  forgiveness,  neither  in  this  world  nor 
in  the  world  to  come.  If  one  asks,  May  I  not  be  already  one  of 
these  hopelessly  hardened  sinners?  the  answer  is,  Whosoever  will, 
let  him  take  the  water  of  life  freely.  God  never  refuses  any  sin¬ 
ner  who  is  willing  to  trust  him  ;  no  one  who  is  willing  to  trust 
him  can  have  become  a  hopelessly  hardened  sinner ;  and  God 
never  casts  off  or  abandons  any  sinner  in  the  sense  that  he  ceases 
to  be  graciously  disposed  toward  him,  and  would  implacably  reject 
him  even  if  he  should  repent  and  put  his  trust  in  God. 

Here  we  see  the  true  meaning  of  Christ’s  words  :  “No  man 
can  come  to  me,  except  the  Father  who  hath  sent  me  draw  him.” 
He  recognizes  the  fact  that  man  is  dependent  on  God,  and  in  his 
normal  condition  is  in  union  with  him  by  faith  receiving  his  divine 
and  quickening  influences,  and  declares  that  therefore  it  is  impos¬ 
sible  for  man  to  be  thus  in  union  with  God  and  receptive  of  his 
quickening  influence  unless  God  is  beforehand  graciously  disposed 
and  seeking  him  with  gracious  influences  to  draw  him  to  himself. 
And  this  sets  aside  two  opposite  errors.  It  is  an  error  to  say  that 
a  sinner,  by  the  mere  force  of  his  own  will,  can  regenerate  himself 


320  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

and  restore  himself  to  his  normal  condition.  This  assumes  that 
God  has  no  agency  in  the  transaction ;  it  overlooks  the  facts  that 
sin  is  wilful  alienation  from  God,  and  that  if  the  sinner  is  to  be 
reconciled  to  God,  God  must  first  be  graciously  disposed  toward 
him,  and  ready  to  receive  him  on  his  turning  from  sin  and  trust¬ 
ing  him  ;  if  the  condition  of  acceptance  is  that  the  sinner  trust 
God  and  accept  his  gracious  influences,  God  must  first  be  seeking 
him  with  gracious  influences  and  offers,  which  the  sinner  is  in¬ 
vited  to  accept,  and  when  the  sinner  seeks  forgiveness  it  is  God 
alone  who  can  forgive.  In  this  transaction  between  a  man  and 
God,  it  is  plain  that  the  man  cannot,  by  the  mere  force  of  his  own 
will,  bring  himself  into  harmony  with  God  without  any  prevenient 
gracious  action  of  God  on  the  man.  The  opposite  error  is  to  say 
that  man  has  not  power  of  any  kind  to  turn  to  God  and  trust 
him,  accepting  his  proffered  grace ;  to  say  that  the  regeneration 
of  a  sinner  is  by  an  irresistible  act  of  God’s  almightiness  ;  or  to 
imply  in  any  form  of  statement  that  the  determining  preventive 
of  a  sinner’s  turning  to  God  is  in  the  action  or  non-action  of  God, 
and  not  in  the  action  or  non-action  of  the  sinner.  Accordingly, 
Christ  himself  intimates  plainly  that  the  drawing  of  the  Father  is 
not  by  almighty  power,  but  by  moral  influence  adapted  to  free¬ 
will.  In  his  next  sentence,  after  saying,  No  man  comes  without 
the  Father’s  drawing,  he  says  :  “  It  is  written  in  the  prophets, 
And  they  shall  all  be  taught  of  God.  Every  one,  therefore,  who 
hath  heard  from  the  Father,  and  hath  learned ,  cometh  unto  me.” 
God’s  love  to  man  always  precedes  man’s  love  to  God.  It  rests 
on  all  men  as  light,  motive,  and  attraction.  Every  person  is  free 
to  yield  to  this  gracious  influence,  to  trust  God  in  his  gracious 
approach  to  man,  and  to  be  accepted  by  God  and  restored  to  his 
normal  union  with  him.  Regeneration  is  the  change  in  a  man 
when  he  puts  his  trust  supremely  in  God,  and  therein,  yielding  to 
the  drawing  of  God’s  love  under  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
begins  the  life  of  love  and  of  self-renunciation. 

3.  All  right  character  and  action  must  begin  in  trust  in  God. 

We  have  already  ascertained  that  the  renunciation  of  self  is 
effected  in  the  choice  of  God  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and 
service.  This  choice  is  the  primary  essence  of  love  to  God  with 
all  the  heart.  Now  we  see  that  in  this  choice  God  is  chosen 
primarily  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust.  Love  to  God,  there¬ 
fore,  begins  in  trust  or  faith  in  him.  This  must  be  so  because  all 


LOVE  MANIFESTED  IN  TRUST  AND  SERVICE  32 1 


finite  persons  are  dependent  on  God  for  their  rational  and  per¬ 
sonal  being,  for  the  truth  which  enlightens  and  the  law  which 
regulates  their  lives,  for  the  ideals  of  perfection  and  good  in  which 
well-being  consists,  and  for  divine  moral  and  spiritual  influence, 
inspiration,  and  quickening  in  right  character  and  action.  There¬ 
fore,  a  finite  person  can  never  be  right  in  character  and  action 
until  he  consents  to  this  fundamental  fact  of  dependence  on  God. 
And  the  will  can  consent  to  this  only  by  actually  choosing  God  as 
the  supreme  object  of  trust.  Whatever  the  person  may  do,  what¬ 
ever  diligence  he  may  use  to  conform  bis  action  to  ritual  or  moral 
law  without  hearty  trust  in  God,  he  persists  in  his  wilful  alienation 
from  God,  repudiates  his  own  condition  as  a  creature,  sets  up  for 
himself  as  independent  and  sufficient  for  himself  even  in  realizing 
the  highest  possibilities  of  his  being,  and  thus  aims  to  isolate  him¬ 
self  from  God  and  from  the  moral  and  spiritual  universe  under 
God’s  government.  This  is  the  essence  of  the  Pharisaism  which 
Jesus  so  continually  and  sternly  condemned.  Evidently,  there¬ 
fore,  love  to  God  is  primarily  manifested  in  trusting  him  ;  it  is 
primarily  the  choice  of  Cxod  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust.  And 
this  is  the  scriptural  doctrine  that  right  character  and  action  must 
begin  and  go  011  by  faith. 

This  is  true  of  all  finite  persons,  from  the  highest  angel  to  the 
weakest  child.  It  is  not,  as  is  often  supposed,  a  condition  of 
their  acceptance  by  God  peculiar  to  sinners.  All  finite  moral 
beings  must  be  educated  and  developed.  The  highest  angel 
must  have  formed  his  character  by  his  own  action  from  a  charac¬ 
terless  beginning.  If  a  rational  being,  born  or  created  into  God’s 
household  and  its  atmosphere  of  divine  love,  and  met  at  the  out¬ 
set  by  the  heavenly  influences  of  God’s  Spirit,  has  yielded  in  his 
first  moral  act  to  the  divine  drawing  and  trusted  God,  and  ever 
since  has  been  a  loving  follower  of  God,  his  whole  development 
from  the  beginning  has  been  by  faith  in  God  uninterrupted  by  sin. 

If  in  his  first  moral  act  or  at  any  subsequent  time  this  person 
has  sinned  and  thus  alienated  himself  from  God,  the  fact  is  an 
additional  reason  why  his  renewal  to  right  character  and  action 
must  begin  in  faith  in  God.  Because  now  he  is  not  only  depend¬ 
ent  as  a  finite  creature  on  God,  but  also  as  a  sinner  needing  to 
be  forgiven  and  accepted  by  him.  And  God  alone  can  forgive 
sin ;  God  alone  can  show  mercy  to  the  sinner  and  accept  him. 
Nothing  which  a  sinner  can  do  can  kindle  compassion  and  grace 

VOL.  ir.  —  21 


322  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


in  the  heart  of  God,  if  it  is  not  there  already,  any  more  than  we 
can  kindle  sunbeams  in  the  sun.  And  so  God  said  to  Moses, 
asserting  that  it  is  his  prerogative  to  pardon  :  “  I  will  have  mercy 
on  whom  I  will  have  mercy,  and  I  will  have  compassion  on  whom 
I  will  have  compassion.”  And  from  this  Paul  infers  the  doctrine 
which  I  have  stated  :  “  So,  then,  it  is  not  of  him  that  willeth  nor 
of  him  that  runneth,  but  of  God  who  hath  mercy”  (Rom.  ix.  15, 
16).  And  because  the  sinner  has  already  transgressed  God’s 
law  of  love  and  put  himself  in  antagonism  to  it,  resisting  all  the 
motives  and  influences  which  it  brings  on  the  heart,  there  must 
be  agencies  and  influences  from  God  to  redeem  him  from  his  sin. 
These  are  brought  on  men  in  redemption  by  Ghrist  and  the  Spirit 
whom  he  sends  from  the  Father.  Hence  the  right  character  of 
the  sinful  man  must  begin  in  faith  in  God  in  Christ  reconciling 
the  world  unto  himself,  in  God  the  redeemer  of  men  from  sin. 
This  is  the  name  that  is  above  every  name,  not  only  in  this 
world,  but  in  that  which  is  to  come  ;  there  is  no  other  name 
under  heaven  given  among  men,  whereby  we  must  be  saved ; 
this  is  the  name  in  which  every  knee  should  bow  (Eph.  i.  21  ; 
Phil.  ii.  9,  10): 

Here  we  see  the  true  relation  of  faith  and  repentance.  We 
have  seen  that  self-renunciation  is  the  negative  aspect  of  the 
positive  act  of  love  to  God,  and  that  love  to  God  must  manifest 
itself  first  as  faith.  Faith,  then,  is  the  positive  action  of  love 
in  trusting  God,  the  redeemer  of  men  from  sin.  Repentance  is 
the  negative  act  of  renouncing  self  and  sin  involved  in  the  choice 
of  God  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust.  Faith  and  repentance, 
therefore,  are  simply  two  aspects  of  one  and  the  same  funda¬ 
mental  choice  of  God  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust.  Faith,  as 
trust  in  God,  is  in  the  order  of  thought  antecedent  to  repentance. 
In  the  order  of  time  they  are  simultaneous  as  two  aspects  of  one 
and  the  same  act.  If,  when  speaking  to  a  person,  I  hear  the 
voice  of  a  friend  calling  me  from  behind  and  turn  to  him,  my 
turning  to  him  and  turning  my  back  on  the  other  person  are 
simply  two  aspects  of  one  and  the  same  act.  But  my  turning  to 
my  friend  is  primary  and  positive,  because  it  was  his  call  which 
moved  me  to  turn ;  and  my  turning  my  back  on  the  other  is  in¬ 
volved  in  my  turning  to  see  my  friend.  So  when  a  sinner  hears 
Christ’s  call,  “  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  who  labor  and  are  heavy 
laden,”  and  turns  to  him  and  trusts  him,  this  is  the  primary  and 


LOVE  MANIFESTED  IN  TRUST  AND  SERVICE  323 


positive  act.  The  turning  from  self  and  sin  is  involved  in  it. 
Faith,  therefore,  in  the  order  of  thought,  precedes  repentance. 
Hence  the  direction  is  given  to  the  sinner :  Come  to  Christ  just 
as  you  are ;  do  not  try  first  to  make  yourself  better  and  worthy 
to  be  received.  So  long  as  this  is  your  thought,  you  are  still  act¬ 
ing  in  self-sufficiency.  Come  as  you  are  and  trust  God  to  receive 
you,  and  by  his  heavenly  influences  to  quicken  and  purify  you  in 
the  life  of  love.  Come  to  Christ  as  you  are ;  but  you  do  not 
remain  as  you  were  ;  in  the  very  act  of  trusting  him  the  change 
is  made.  Trusting  in  him  and  willingly  receiving  his  gracious 
influences,  you  become  a  new  creature  in  Christ,  living  hence¬ 
forth  not  in  self-sufficiency,  self-glorifying,  self-will,  and  self- 
seeking,  but  in  trustful  union  with  God  in  Christ.  And  for  such 
Christ  ever  intercedes:  “As  thou,  Father,  art  in  me  and  I  in 
thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us  ”  (John  xvii.  21). 

II.  Love  Manifested  in  Acts  of  Service.  —  The  word  ser¬ 
vice  is  used  to  denote  both  acts  of  obedience  to  one  who 
commands,  and  acts  helping  a  person  in  his  undertakings  and 
designed  to  promote  his  interests.  Because  God  has  no  needs, 
service  to  him  must  be  principally  obedience  to  his  commands. 
Service  to  a  man,  on  the  contrary,  consists  principally  in  doing 
something  for  him  to  supply  his  needs  and  promote  his  welfare. 
In  the  Christian  life  these  two  types  of  service,  obedience  and 
doing  good,  are  brought  into  unity.  The  truths,  laws,  and  ideals, 
archetypal  and  eternal  in  God  the  absolute  Reason,  determine 
what  the  well-being  possible  in  this  universe  is,  and  what  are  the 
only  effectual  methods  of  seeking  it.  Therefore,  service  to  man 
is  doing  him  good  or  seeking  his  well-being  in  obedience  to  the 
law  of  God.  On  the  other  hand,  service  to  God  is  obeying  his 
law  by  doing  good  to  men.  God’s  law  requires  of  men  universal 
love  like  the  love  which  is  eternal  in  God  and  constitutes  his 
moral  character  and  perfection.  The  only  way  in  which  we  can 
obey  God  is  by  the  exercise  of  universal  love,  working  with  God 
in  promoting  the  well-being  of  men  in  conformity  with  God’s  law 
of  love.  God’s  entire  action  among  men  in  his  providential  and 
moral  government  and  in  redemption  is  the  expression  of  love, 
establishing  and  extending  Christ’s  kingdom.  So  far,  therefore, 
as  we  work  to  promote  the  true  well-being  of  men  we  are  work¬ 
ing  with  God  to  bring  them  back  to  conformity  with  his  law  of 


324  the  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 

love.  Thus  we  serve  God  both  by  obeying  his  law  and  by  enter¬ 
ing  into  his  archetypal  plan  and  working  with  him  in  the  ad¬ 
vancement  of  his  kingdom.  The  service  of  God  by  obedience 
is  in  its  essence  the  service  of  men  by  doing  them  good,  and 
seeking  their  well-being  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  The  service 
of  men  by  seeking  their  true  well-being  is  in  its  essence  the 
service  of  God  in  obedience. 

The  words  service  and  servant  have  acquired  an  opprobrious 
meaning,  implying  degradation,  because  service  has  so  commonly 
been  compulsory,  enforced  by  arbitrary  and  overmastering  power. 
A  compulsory  obedience  is  degrading.  But  obedience  to  right¬ 
ful  authority  declaring  just  laws  is  elevating  and  ennobling.  The 
transition  from  a  cringing  subjection  under  force  to  a  reverential 
obedience  to  just  laws  is  an  epoch  of  progress  of  an  individual 
and  of  society.  Pre-eminently  the  service  rendered  in  obeying 
God’s  law  is  ennobling,  not  only  because  it  is  obedience  to  law 
as  distinguished  from  subjection  to  force,  but  also  because  the 
law  obeyed  is  the  law  of  God  the  absolute  Reason,  in  conformity 
with  which  he  has  constituted  the  universe  and  administers  its 
government ;  because  man  in  obeying  it  discovers  his  own  great¬ 
ness  as  capable  of  knowing  God  and  working  with  him  in  the 
progressive  realization  of  his  archetypal  ideals ;  and  because  the 
law  requires  universal  love  manifested  in  the  service  of  doing 
good  to  man  and  promoting  universal  well-being,  in  which  the 
man  participates  in  the  love  which  is  the  moral  perfection  of 
God,  and  so  in  his  own  character  partakes  of  the  divine. 

From  this  point  of  view  it  appears  that  he  who  serves  another 

is,  as  to  that  particular  service,  the  superior  of  him  who  receives 

it.  He  has  what  the  other  wants.  He  renders  a  service  which 
the  recipient  cannot  so  well  render  to  himself.  Here  we  find 
again,  imbedded  in  the  very  constitution  of  the  universe,  the  law 
of  greatness  for  service  and  greatness  by  service.  And  because 
God  has  no  wants  and  all  his  action  is  in  love  seeking  the  well¬ 
being  of  the  universe  in  conformity  with  the  truths,  laws  and 
ideals  of  perfect  reason,  we  may  truly  say  that  God’s  love  mani¬ 
fests  itself  in  service.  Accordingly,  when  God  makes  the  fullest 
revelation  of  himself,  the  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world 
unto  himself,  he  took  “  the  form  of  a  servant  ”  ;  and  so  our  Lord 
said  at  the  last  supper,  after  washing  his  disciples’  feet,  “  I  am  in 
the  midst  of  you  as  he  that  serveth.” 


LOVE  MANIFESTED  IN  TRUST  AND  SERVICE  325 


In  a  preceding  chapter  it  was  shown  that  the  action  of  God  in 
the  creation  and  evolution  of  the  universe, is  the  action  of  the 
Highest  coming  down  to-  the  lowest  to  elevate  and  develop  it,  to 
realize  progressively  the  highest  perfection  and  well-being  possible 
in  a  finite  universe,  for  countless  millions  of  finite  beings  consti¬ 
tuted  in  his  own  likeness  as  rational  self-determining  persons. 
Therefore  God’s  whole  action  in  the  universe  is  rendering  service. 
The  necessary  inference  is  that  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ 
under  the  forms  and  conditions  of  humanity  and  therein  taking 
the  form  of  a  servant,  is  not  a  myth  invented  by  his  disciples  nor 
a  mere  speculation  of  theologians ;  but  it  is  the  legitimate  cul¬ 
mination  of  the  continuous  revelation  of  God  in  the  finite,  of  the 
highest  coming  down  to  the  lowest  to  lift  it  up.  Once  admit  that 
God  is  revealing  himself  in  the  progressive  evolution  of  the  finite 
universe,  and  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  becomes  not  only 
conceivable  as  possible,  but  antecedently  probable,  as  a  legitimate 
development  of  God’s  continuous  and  progressive  revelation  of 
his  own  essential  being  and  character  and  of  the  fundamental 
law  of  the  moral  system  eternal  in  him  as  the  absolute  Reason. 
Therefore  the  law  of  service  is  not  an  arbitrary  requirement  of  a 
despotic  will,  but  an  eternal  principle  of  reason  incorporated  into 
the  constitution  of  the  universe.  The  law  of  love,  which  requires 
service,  is  fundamental  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe.  It  is 
as  essential  to  the  existence  of  a  moral  system  as  the  law  of 
gravitation  is  to  the  existence  of  a  physical  system.  Accordingly 
Christ  teaches  that  the  service  of  love  exalts  the  servant  to  be  a 
personal  friend.  “  Ye  are  my  friends,  if  ye  do  the  things  which 
I  command  you.  Henceforth  I  call  you  not  servants  ;  but  I  have 
called  you  friends  ”  (John  xv.  14,  15). 

III.  The  Unity  of  Love  in  Trust  and  Service.  —  Trust 
and  service  are  two  manifestations  of  one  and  the  same  love. 
Love  to  God,  psychologically  defined,  is  the  free  and  abiding 
choice  of  him  as  the  supreme  object  of  the  entire  activity.  The 
entire  activity  of  man  is  twofold,  reception  and  production,  which, 
directed  to  persons,  are  trust  and  service.  Love  to  God  as  su¬ 
preme  involves  love  to  our  neighbor  as  ourselves.  This  also 
manifests  itself  in  the  same  two  lines  of  action.  Thus  we  have 
the  unity  of  moral  character  as  the  supreme  choice  or  love  mani¬ 
festing  itself  in  acts  of  trust  and  service.  George  Eliot  says  :  I 


326  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


believe  that  morality  began  whenever  one  creature  felt  its  need 
of  another.”  Julia  Wedgewood  quotes  this  and  says  :  “We  should 
rather  say  that  morality  cannot  begin  till  some  creature  feels  itself 
needed  by  another.”  1  We  should  say  that  the  trust  recognized 
by  the  former  and  the  service  recognized  by  the  latter  are  the  two 
lines  of  action  in  which  the  love  required  in  God’s  law  manifests 
itself.  But  love  to  God  legitimately  manifests  itself  first  as  trust. 

i.  Trust  or  faith  is  a  manifestation  of  love.  It  is  a  common 
error  that  faith  is  entirely  distinct  from  love  and  that  love  is 
manifested  only  in  acts  of  service.  But  it  is  love  that  trusts  as 
really  as  it  is  love  that  serves.  A  child’s  instinctive  love  to  its 
father  and  mother  in  its  earlier  years  is  manifested  chiefly  in  acts 
of  reception  and  trust ;  while  that  of  the  parents  to  the  child  is 
manifested  chiefly  in  acts  of  service.  But  the  child’s  instinctive 
love  in  receiving  and  trusting  is  as  real  love  as  the  parents’ 
instinctive  love  in  imparting  and  serving.  It  is  often  said  that 
love  to  a  person  is  strengthened  more  by  giving  to  him  and  serv¬ 
ing  him  than  it  is  by  receiving  from  him  and  trusting  him.  But 
this  overlooks  the  distinction  between  the  two  manifestations  of 
love.  The  love  of  a  child  is  strengthened  by  receiving  and  trust¬ 
ing  as  really  as  that  of  the  parents  is  strengthened  by  giving  and 
serving.  And  in  general  the  trustful  love  of  the  weak  is  increased 
by  receiving  and  trusting  as  really  as  the  serving  love  of  the  strong 
is  increased  by  imparting  and  serving. 

The  biblical  distinction  of  faith  and  love  is  in  harmony  with  the 
fact  that  faith  is  a  manifestation  of  love.  Paul  says  :  “  Now  abid- 
eth  faith,  hope,  love,  these  three ;  and  the  greatest  of  these  is 
love”  (i  Cor.  xiii.  13).  The  verb  is  singular,  suggesting  the 
oneness  of  the  three.  Love  is  the  greatest,  for  it  is  in  itself  the 
fulfilment  of  the  law  and  comprehends  all  right  character.  Faith 
or  trust  is  the  primary  manifestation  of  love  to  the  heavenly 
Father,  as  it  is  of  a  child’s  love  to  its  earthly  father;  and  hope  is 
a  necessary  consequent  of  loving  trust  in  God,  being  simply  the 
person’s  appropriation  to  himself  of  the  promises  of  God  in  con¬ 
scious  trust  in  him,  and  therefore  in  confidence  that  he  is  ac¬ 
cepted  by  God  and  reconciled  to  him.  Paul  speaks  also  of  “  faith 
which  worketh  by  love”  (Gal.  v.  6).  The  Greek  admits  the 
translation,  “  faith  which  is  wrought  by  love.”  This  is  given  in 
the  margin  of  the  Revised  Version,  and  has  been  accepted  as  the 

1  Contemporary  Review,  July  1889,  p.  127. 


LOVE  MANIFESTED  IN  TRUST  AND  SERVICE  327 


preferable  translation  by  many  scholars,  especially  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  Thus  translated,  the  passage  would  declare  that 
faith  is  action  in  which  love  manifests  itself.  The  translation 
preferred  in  our  English  version  involves  the  same  meaning ; 
faith  works  itself  out  in  love  ;  faith  is  love  in  its  incipient  form, 
and  in  its  action  or  working  reveals  itself  as  love.  Here  is  found 
a  real  meaning  of  the  old  distinction  between  fides  informis  and 
fides  formata.  The  former  would  denote  faith  as  incipient  love 
simply  trusting  in  God ;  the  latter  would  denote  the  trusting  love 
working  out  and  developing  its  essence  as  love  in  works  of  pro¬ 
duction  and  service.  As  Julius  Muller  expresses  it :  “  Faith  is  a 
moment  in  the  idea  of  love  ”  ;  that  is,  it  is  an  essential  element, 
a  moving  energy,  a  momentum,  in  love. 

2.  Both  in  trust  and  in  service  love  is  manifested  in  its  two 
aspects  as  righteousness  and  benevolence. 

It  has  been  shown  in  a  preceding  chapter  that  the  service  of 
God  and  man  is  a  service  of  benevolence  or  good-will  regulated 
by  righteousness.  It  is  necessary  here  only  to  show,  also,  that 
the  trust  in  which  love  first  manifests  itself  involves  benevolence 
or  good-will,  and  in  its  exercise  should  accord  with  truth  and  law, 
and  so  is  regulated  by  righteousness.  Both  of  these  aspects  of 
love  are  present  in  trusting  as  really  as  in  serving. 

That  trust  in  God  involves  benevolence  as  implicit  in  it,  is  evi¬ 
dent  from  the  fact  that  in  choosing  God  the  sinner  must  renounce 
self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust.  Trusting  himself  to  God,  he 
no  longer  trusts  himself  in  self-sufficiency.  And  because  self- 
sufficiency  is  the  primal  germ  of  all  sin,  the  renunciation  of  it 
involves  the  cessation  of  the  self-glorifying,  self-will,  and  self- 
seeking,  which  are  inseparably  connected  with  it.  In  the  act  of 
trusting  God  the  change  of  heart  is  effected,  and  the  love  which 
involves  universal  good-will  begins.  From  the  beginning  of  this 
love  the  good-will  or  benevolence  is  implicit  in  it,  and  must 
reveal  itself  explicitly  when  the  love  is  developed  in  service.  It 
is  not  conceivable  that  one  can  intrust  himself  and  all  his  interests 
to  God  without  the  renunciation  of  self,  and  the  sentiment  of 
good-will  toward  God  manifesting  itself  in  interest  in  his  king¬ 
dom,  and  the  benevolent  desire  that  all  men  be  brought  to  par¬ 
ticipate  in  it  as  citizens.  The  very  purpose  with  which  one  trusts 
God  is  to  gain  deliverance  from  the  alienation  and  isolation  of 
selfishness  and  reunion  with  God  in  the  life  of  love.  The  act 


328  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


of  faith  presupposes  that  the  person  has  been  awakened  to  see  his 
sin  and  misery  in  the  alienation  and  isolation  of  selfishness.  To 
be  delivered  from  this  is  precisely  what  he  seeks  in  casting  him¬ 
self  on  God  and  seeking  to  receive  from  him  forgiveness  and 
quickening  and  saving  grace.  If  a  sinner  should  look  to  God 
merely  with  the  intent  that  God  should  save  him  from  the  pains 
of  hell  and  use  the  divine  almightiness  to  protect  and  bless 
him  forever,  his  intent  would  be  to  make  God  his  servant,  not 
to  become  himself  the  servant  of  God.  In  such  an  act  the  sin¬ 
ner  would  not  have  exercised  the  faith  which  worketh  by  love ; 
he  would  not  have  renounced  self  nor  have  trusted  in  God,  but 
would  be  still  continuing  in  his  self-sufficiency,  self-glorifying, 
self-will,  and  self-seeking.  Thus  the  act  of  supreme  trust  in  God 
has  implicit  in  it  the  spirit  of  universal  good-will. 

The  exercise  of  faith  is  also  regulated  by  righteousness.  It  is 
in  accordance  with  the  truth,  and  required  and  regulated  by  the 
law,  and  in  harmony  with  the  archetypal  ideals  which  are  eternal 
in  God  the  absolute  Reason  and  determine  the  constitution  of 
the  universe.  It  is  in  conformity  with  the  fundamental  and  un¬ 
changeable  realities  of  the  universe.  In  choosing  God  as  the 
supreme  object  of  trust,  the  person  chooses  him  as  he  is  ;  chooses 
him  because  he  is  what  he  is,  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  the  all¬ 
wise,  the  all-perfect,  the  almighty,  the  Creator,  on  whom  all  things 
depend.  Otherwise,  he  would  not  be  trusting  the  true  and  living 
God,  but  a  fiction  of  his  own  mind,  an  idol  created  by  his  own 
imagination.  In  trusting  God,  he  consents  with  all  his  heart  to 
the  supremacy  of  God,  to  the  authority  and  inviolability  of  his 
law,  to  his  absolute  perfection,  and  his  worthiness  to  be  the 
supreme  object  of  trust.  Thus  trust  in  God  is  required  by  law 
and  regulated  in  righteousness.  The  reason  why  God  should  be 
the  supreme  object  of  trust  is  found  in  the  eternal  truths,  laws,  and 
archetypal  ideals  of  absolute  Reason,  showing  God  alone  to  be 
worthy  to  be  the  supreme  object  of  trust  for  all  finite  persons. 

And  in  love  to  man  trust  is  regulated  by  righteousness.  We 
may  trust  men  no  farther  than  we  see  them  to  be  trustworthy. 
We  must  withhold  our  trust  and  confidence  so  far  as  we  know 
persons  to  be  false,  dishonest,  corrupt,  and  also  so  far  as  we  know 
them  to  be  weak  and  incompetent. 

Our  trust  is  regulated  by  righteousness,  also,  in  reference  to 
our  own  powers  and  needs.  One  is  not  justified  in  leaning  on 


LOVE  MANIFESTED  IN  TRUST  AND  SERVICE  329 


others  and  making  himself  a  burden  to  them  for  what  he  can 
do  as  well  for  himself.  Every  one  is  bound  to  make  the  highest 
and  best  use  of  his  own  powers.  A  babe,  by  its  helplessness, 
commands  the  willing  service  of  all  in  the  household.  But  if, 
after  he  has  grown,  the  boy  demands  the  attention  and  service 
which  were  given  him  as  a  babe,  he  is  only  laughed  at  as  a  great 
baby.  The  same  principle  applies  to  our  trust  in  God.  We  are 
not  to  trust  him  to  do  for  us  what  we  can  do  for  ourselves,  but 
only  to  quicken  us  with  divine  influence,  so  that  in  our  normal 
union  with  him  we  may  exert  our  own  energies  in  their  greatest 
effectiveness  and  for  the  noblest  ends. 

3.  Trust  or  faith  in  God,  leads  to  the  exertion  of  the  energies 
in  obedience  and  doing  good,  in  works  of  righteousness  and 
benevolence,  in  works  of  Christian  service  ;  and  it  makes  it  a 
trustful,  willing,  and  spontaneous  service,  a  service  of  love.  This 
is  implied  in  the  nature  of  faith.  When  one  has  lost  his  way  in 
the  woods  and  a  man  appears  and  offers  to  guide  him,  if  the 
bewildered  person  trusts  him  as  an  honest  and  competent  guide 
he  will  follow  him,  carefully  keeping  him  in  sight  and  obeying  his 
directions.  If  he  distrusts  him,  thinking  him  a  robber,  he  will 
avoid  him.  If  a  sick  person  trusts  his  physician,  he  will  follow 
his  prescriptions  carefully ;  if  he  distrusts  him,  he  will  fling  his 
medicine  into  the  fire.  If  one  commits  money  to  another,  in 
whom  he  has  confidence,  to  invest  it  for  him,  he  will  follow  his 
advice  ;  so  far  as  he  lacks  confidence  in  him  he  will  hesitate  to 
follow  it.  The  same  is  the  essential  tendency  of  faith  in  God. 
Whoever  trusts  himself  wholly  to  God  will  spontaneously  obey  his 
commandments  and  do  his  will.  Faith,  according  to  its  essential 
nature,  works  in  loving  obedience  and  service.  No  one  may 
safely  trust  himself  and  all  his  interests  to  any  man,  for  it  would 
give  the  man  thus  trusted  the  absolute  control  of  him.  And  no 
man  is  sufficiently  wise,  good,  powerful,  long-lived  to  justify  such 
a  trust.  Hence  there  is  a  debasement  in  such  a  trust  in  man ; 
a  just  contempt  is  felt  for  one  who  so  gives  himself  up  to  another 
as  to  become  his  man,  to  be  used  for  his  purposes.  There  is  a 
natural  gravitation  of  the  weak  to  the  strong.  By  virtue  of  it  the 
Nimrods,  the  hunters  of  men,  attract  followers  and  use  them  as 
tools  or  victims  for  the  purposes  of  their  own  ambition.  But 
there  is  no  such  danger  in  trusting  all  to  God,  and  in  that  confi¬ 
dence  becoming  God’s  men,  doing  all  his  will  and  working  with 


330  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


him  in  fulfilling  the  great  plans  of  his  wisdom  and  love.  Nor  is 
there  any  debasement  in  this  complete  surrender  of  ourselves  to 
him.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  only  in  this  complete  surrender 
of  ourselves  to  God  and  union  with  him  by  faith  that  we  are  able 
to  exert  our  powers  in  their  highest  energy,  and  to  realize  the 
highest  possibilities  of  our  being. 

4.  Trust  and  service,  while  manifesting  the  same  love,  manifest 
it  in  different  forms. 

Love  in  the  exercise  of  faith  is  receptive  ;  in  service  it  is  pro¬ 
ductive,  forthputting,  imparting,  energizing,  achieving.  Faith  re¬ 
ceives.  In  it  the  soul,  like  a  flower  opening  to  the  sun,  opens 
itself  to  God  in  Christ,  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  rising  on  it  with 
healing  in  his  wings.  It  lifts  up  suppliant  hands  to  receive  bless¬ 
ing.  Its  native  speech  is  prayer,  thanksgiving,  and  praise.  But 
while  faith  takes  in,  love  in  service  gives  forth ;  by  what  it  has 
received  in  faith,  love  grows  and  in  service  bears  much  fruit  and 
gives  to  those  who  need. 

Love  in  faith  looks  up.  It  is  the  lower  reaching  up  to  the 
higher,  the  weak  laying  hold  of  the  strong ;  it  ascends  to  God 
and  receives  of  his  fulness.  Love  in  service  goes  down  to  those 
who  are  beneath  to  lift  them  up ;  it  goes  out  to  those  who  are 
without,  bringing  to  them  the  spiritual  gifts  which  by  faith  it  has 
received  from  God.  Faith  is  the  cry  of  weakness  and  need ; 
service  is  the  work  of  the  strong  energizing  in  the  strength  which 
the  cry  of  weakness  and  need  has  won  from  God. 

And  these  are  manifestations  of  the  same  love.  In  faith  we 
open  empty  hands  in  supplication  to  receive ;  in  service  we  open 
filled  hands  to  give.  Like  God  who  opens  his  hand  and  all 
creatures  are  filled  with  good,  we  open  our  tiny  hands  and  give 
the  blessings  with  which  he  has  filled  them.  These  two  forces  of 
love  are  in  the  moral  system  the  centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces 
by  which  it,  like  the  solar  system,  moves  forever  in  order  and 
glory.  In  faith  in  Christ,  Christians  are  drawn  to  God  by  the 
attraction  of  his  love ;  and  quickened  by  his  grace  and  inspired 
by  his  love  they  are  impelled  outward  to  serve  him.  By  these 
two  forces  they  are  held  steadily  in  their  orbits ;  like  planets 
revolving  around  the  sun,  reflecting  its  light  and  storing  up  its 
heat  in  support  of  multitudinous  life,  they  move  on  their  glorious 
way,  ever  shining  in  God’s  love,  reflecting  it  upon  all,  and  storing 
it  up  to  nourish  spiritual  life  in  those  about  them ;  they  are  ever 


LOVE  MANIFESTED  IN  TRUST  AND  SERVICE  33 1 


drawn  to  God  and  held  in  union  with  him  by  his  love,  ever 
impelled  outward  by  participating  in  that  love,  even  as  Christ 
was,  to  seek  and  save  the  lost. 

In  faith  love  is  incipient  and  germinal ;  in  service  it  is  developed 
to  its  full  productivity  and  fruitfulness.  It  is  not  merely  that  the 
Christian’s  love  had  its  beginning  in  an  act  of  faith ;  but  that  the 
energy  of  Christian  service  is  daily  and  hourly  fed  by  reception 
of  divine  influence.  When  Luther  was  climbing  Pilate’s  staircase 
it  was  revealed  to  him  that  the  just  live  by  faith,  not  by  the 
observance  of  ceremonies  nor  by  attempting  to  obey  rules  of  duty 
without  faith  in  God.  And  this  faith  inspired  him  continuously 
in  the  great  work  of  his  life.  This  continuous  faith  is  known  in 
theology  as  the  actus  adhesionis,  the  act  of  adhesion  to  Christ. 
It  is  expressed  familiarly  in  worship  as  clinging  to  Christ : 
“  Simply  to  thy  cross  I  cling.” 

In  this  continuous  life  of  faith  the  person’s  capacity  to  receive 
divine  influence  becomes  greater  and  greater.  He  grows  in  the 
grace  and  knowledge  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour,  Jesus  the  Christ. 
When  a  scion  is  grafted  into  a  young  stock  it  begins  at  once  to 
receive  life  and  nourishment  from  the  stock.  It  must  continue 
so  to  receive  or  it  cannot  live.  Thus  continuing,  its  receptivity 
increases.  Its  growth  will  be  slow.  Part  of  it,  dried  in  its  separa¬ 
tion  from  the  tree  on  which  it  grew,  decays  and  drops  off.  By 
and  by  a  single  tiny  leaf  appears.  Continuing  to  receive  more 
and  more,  it  at  last  becomes  capable  of  appropriating  the  whole 
life  and  nourishment  of  the  stock  and  becomes  itself  a  great  tree, 
receptive  in  every  root  and  twig  and  leaf  from  all  the  cosmic 
powers  and  resources  of  its  environment,  bearing  much  fruit. 
So  the  Christian  “  shall  be  like  a  tree  planted  by  the  streams  of 
water.”  He  grows  continually  in  capacity  to  receive,  appropriate, 
and  assimilate  the  divine,  and  more  and  more  becomes  strong  in 
the  Lord  for  effective  service. 

Hence  faith  is  the  energizing  principle  of  the  Christian  life. 
The  sinner,  fleeing  to  God  as  the  refuge  from  all  enemies,  is 
inspired  by  him  with  courage  to  face  them  all  and  strengthened 
with  divine  strength  to  overpower  them.  This  energizing  power 
of  faith  in  one  wiser  and  stronger  is  continually  exemplified  in 
history  and  in  every-day  life.  It  is  expressed  by  Horace,  “  Nil 
desperandum  Teucro  duce  et  auspice  Teucro.”1  The  military 

1  “  Carminum,”  Lib.  I.,  vii.  27. 


332  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


success  of  Napoleon  was  due  largely  to  his  soldiers’  faith  in  him. 
Much  more  is  faith  in  God  the  spring  of  heroic  endeavor  and 
mighty  achievement.  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  declares  that 
faith  in  God  was  the  secret  of  the  mighty  deeds  done  by  the 
heroes  of  Cxod’s  kingdom  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  same  was 
the  secret  of  the  spiritual  power  of  Paul  and  the  other  apostles,  of 
the  Christian  confessors  and  martyrs,  and  of  all  great  workers  for 
Christ  and  for  humanity  in  the  Christian  church.  They  are 
rightly  called  heroes  of  faith. 

5.  We  now  see  the  true  significance  of  the  scriptural  distinc¬ 
tion  of  faith  and  works.  Trust  in  God,  the  willing  reception  of 
his  grace,  is  the  faith  ;  the  service  in  obedience  and  in  doing 
good,  in  which  the  faith  by  its  essential  nature  issues,  is  the 
works.  Together  they  manifest  the  love  which  the  law  requires, 
which  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  law,  and  which  a  sinner  begins  to 
exercise  in  the  act  of  faith  in  regeneration  or  the  new  birth  under 
the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God. 

This  discloses  the  true  significance  of  the  scriptural  doctrine 
that  the  whole  Christian  life  is  by  faith.  Hence,  on  the  one 
hand,  any  supposed  works  of  service,  which  are  done  without 
faith  in  God,  cannot  be  manifestations  of  the  love  required  by  the 
law  nor  be  acceptable  to  God  as  real  obedience  to  the  law ;  on 
the  other  hand,  any  supposed  faith  which  does  not  issue  in 
works  of  service  in  obedience  to  God  and  doing  good  to  men, 
cannot  be  real  and  saving  faith  in  God. 

It  follows  that  the  common  objection,  that  the  doctrine  of 
justification  on  condition  of  faith  is  of  immoral  tendency,  rests  on 
a  total  misconception  of  the  doctrine.  The  objection  insists  that 
justification  must  be  conditioned,  not  on  faith,  but  on  right 
character.  But  the  doctrine  of  justification  conditioned  on  faith 
is  itself  the  doctrine  of  justification  conditioned  on  right  charac¬ 
ter,  because  faith  in  God  is  the  only  possible  beginning  of  right 
character  either  in  men  or  angels,  either  in  sinners  or  in  those 
who  have  never  sinned.  If  God  should  offer  forgiveness  to  a 
sinner  on  any  condition  other  than  his  forsaking  sin  in  the  exer¬ 
cise  of  the  love  to  God  and  man  required  in  the  law,  he  would 
thereby  set  aside  and  annul  the  authority  of  the  law  and  the  uni¬ 
versal  obligation  to  obey  it.  There  can  be  no  justification  and 
salvation  of  a  sinner  except  on  condition  of  his  forsaking  sin. 
But  sin  in  its  essence  is  alienation  from  God  and  isolation  from 


LOVE  MANIFESTED  IN  TRUST  AND  SERVICE  333 


men  in  selfishness,  involving  self-sufficiency,  self-glorifying,  self- 
will,  and  self-seeking.  Therefore,  the  only  possible  way  of  for¬ 
saking  sin  is  by  self-renunciation ;  and  the  only  possible  way  of 
self-renunciation  is  by  the  sinner’s  returning  to  God  and  putting 
his  trust  in  him,  to  receive  from  God  the  divine  grace  and  the 
spiritual  influences  without  which  no  rational  creature  can  attain 
his  normal  development  and  realize  the  highest  possibilities  of  his 
being.  In  thus  trusting  God,  the  sinner  ceases  to  live  in  self- 
sufficiency,  self-will,  and  self-seeking ;  he  recognizes  his  depend¬ 
ence  on  God  and  his  unity  with  all  rational  beings  in  the  moral 
system  ;  he  comes  into  harmony  with  the  fundamental  realities 
of  the  universe  and  of  his  own  being  and  begins  to  live  the  life  of 
universal  love  required  in  God’s  law.  The  doctrine  of  justifica¬ 
tion  by  God  on  condition  of  faith  alone,  that  is,  excluding  as  a 
condition  of  justification  all  antecedent  and  faithless  acts  of  falsely 
supposed  obedience  to  the  law,  is  the  only  possible  doctrine  of 
justification  on  condition  of  right  character.  It  is  the  only  doc¬ 
trine  of  justification  on  condition  of  right  character  which  is 
possible  or  conceivable  in  harmony  with  the  belief  in  a  moral 
system  of  rational  beings  under  the  moral  government  of  God, 
who  is  love,  and  whose  law  is  the  law  of  universal  love.  There¬ 
fore  the  denial  of  the  doctrine  of  justification  only  on  condition 
of  faith  logically  involves  the  denial  of  God  and  of  the  moral 
system  under  the  government  of  God  and  his  law  of  universal 
love. 

It  follows  that  the  doctrine  that  the  just  shall  live  by  faith  is 
the  same  with  the  doctrine  that  the  just  by  faith  shall  live ;  for 
all  right  spiritual  character  with  its  appropriate  action  and  life  is 
by  faith  in  God. 

6.  It  is  important  to  the  clear  apprehension  of  the  subject 
to  notice  another  point ;  though  it  can  be  only  indicated  here 
and  not  fully  investigated.  Acts  of  trust  and  service  are  manifes¬ 
tations  of  love  and  derive  their  moral  character  from  the  supreme 
love  which  they  manifest  or  reveal.  The  essence  of  moral  char¬ 
acter  in  its  primary  sense  is  the  choice  of  the  supreme  object 
of  trust  and  service ;  and  the  trust  and  service  derive  their 
moral  character  from  the  supreme  choice  which  expresses  or 
manifests  itself  in  them.  If  a  person  loves  God  with  all  his  heart, 
God  will  be  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  and  the 
character  expressed  in  these  acts  will  be  right.  If  he  loves  him- 


334  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 

self  supremely,  his  supreme  trust  will  be  in  himself  and  will  ap¬ 
pear  in  self-sufficiency  and  self-glorifying ;  and  his  service  will  be 
of  himself  and  will  appear  in  self-will  and  self-seeking. 

Selfishness  in  its  essence  and  tendency  is  isolating.  But  a 
person,  however  selfish,  cannot  rid  himself  of  his  dependence 
on  others.  Man  must  live  in  society,  and  society  cannot  exist 
without  reciprocal  trust  and  service.  Hence  even  robbers 
banded  together  trust  and  serve  one  another  in  the  prosecution 
of  their  criminal  designs.  And  in  well-ordered  society,  in  the 
family,  in  the  markets,  in  all  lines  of  business  or  of  pleasure, 
life  can  go  on  only  by  mutual  trust  and  service.  Men  have 
good  natural  affections  prompting  them  to  seek  the  welfare  of 
others ;  they  have  reason  and  conscience  by  which  they  see  their 
duty  and  feel  under  obligation  to  do  it ;  and  Christian  influences 
have  refined  and  elevated  civilization.  The  resulting  acts  of 
trust  and  service  are  not  wrong  in  themselves.  A  saint  in  the 
closest  union  with  God  and  actuated  by  the  strongest  love  to 
God  and  man  might  do  the  same  outward  acts.  The  deeper 
spiritual  character,  the  supreme  love  to  God  and  the  love  of  our 
neighbor  as  ourselves,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  the  self-sufficiency, 
self-will,  and  self-seeking  manifesting  the  supreme  choice  of  self, 
infuses  itself  into  the  acts  of  trust  and  service  and  imbues  them 
with  its  own  character.  But,  of  multitudes  of  those  thus  living 
in  reciprocal  trust  and  service,  that  may  be  true  which  Christ 
said  of  the  Pharisees  :  “  I  know  you  that  ye  have  not  the  love 
of  God  in  you.”  They  have  never  chosen  God  as  the  supreme 
object  of  trust  and  service  ;  therefore  they  have  never  exercised 
real  self-renunciation  nor  come  into  real  conformity  with  the 
second  great  commandment  of  the  law,  “Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself.”  This  state  of  things  accords  with  the 
principle  that  men  may  live  in  sin  for  a  long  time  and  yet  remain 
accessible  to  divine  influence  and  reclaimable  by  divine  grace. 
If  men  once  reached  the  condition  in  which  all  mutual  trust 
and  service  had  ceased,  human  society  would  be  nothing  better 
than  hell. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  HIS  RELATION  TO  GOD 

In  the  analysis  of  the  significance  and  applications  of  the  love 
required  in  the  law  we  come  next  to  the  distribution  of  duties 
to  different  persons  and  classes  of  persons. 

The  two  great  commandments  of  the  law  present  God  and 
man  as  distinct  objects  of  love  and  of  the  specific  duties  implied 
in  love.  Therefore  in  the  distribution  of  duties  to  different 
persons  the  first  and  great  distinction  is  of  duties  to  God,  and 
duties  to  man  as  related  to  God. 

I.  Duty  to  God.  —  The  peculiarity  of  duty  to  God  is  deter¬ 
mined  by  the  fact  that  he  is  God,  the  source  of  all  being,  power, 
and  life,  and  of  all  truth,  law,  perfection,  and  good,  the  absolute 
and  all-perfect,  above  all  creatures  by  the  whole  distance  from 
the  conditioned  to  the  absolute,  from  the  finite  to  the  infinite. 
Hence  he  is  the  supreme  object  of  love,  and  we  owe  to  him 
duties  such  as  we  can  never  owe  to  any  or  all  creatures. 

i.  Love  to  God  is  manifested  both  in  trusting  and  serving 
him.  But  because  men  are  dependent  on  God  as  his  creatures, 
their  love  to  him,  like  a  child’s  love  to  its  father  and  mother, 
must  manifest  itself  primarily  in  acts  of  trust.  Trust  in  God 
naturally  expresses  itself  in  worship.  Prayer,  confession,  thanks¬ 
giving,  praise,  adoration,  are  the  native  language  of  faith. 
Because  God  is  independent  and  in  want  of  nothing,  the  service 
rendered  to  him  must  be  primarily  obedience  to  his  law  and 
submission  to  his  will,  in  the  renunciation  of  self-sufficiency 
and  self-will.  But  we  can  obey  God’s  law  and  submit  to  his 
will  only  in  the  exercise  of  love  to  God  and  man.  Therefore, 
in  the  very  act  of  obeying  God’s  law,  we  render  to  him  the  further 
service  of  entering  into  his  plans,  working  with  him  in  the 


336  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

redemption  of  men  from  sin  and  advancing  his  kingdom,  and 
thus  doing  the  works  of  righteousness  and  benevolence  towards 
men.  This  God  accepts  as  service  to  himself.  “  He  who  hath 
pity  on  the  poor  lendeth  to  the  Lord  and  his  good  deed  will  he 
pay  him  again”  (Prov.  xix.  17).  And  Jesus  says  in  his  judg¬ 
ment  of  men  to  their  final  destiny :  “  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it 
unto  one  of  these  my  brethren,  even  these  least,  ye  did  it  unto 
me  ”  (Matth.  xxv.  40). 

2.  Love  to  God  appears  as  righteousness,  in  its  three 
subordinate  forms  of  truthfulness  or  love  of  truth,  justice,  and 
complacency. 

First,  Truthfulness  towards  God  is  the  consent  of  the  will 
to  God  as  true ;  it  is  the  consent  of  the  will  to  truth  in  all 
dealings  with  God. 

Before  the  truth  is  known,  love  of  the  truth  pertaining  to 
God  or  revealed  by  him  is  candor  or  docility,  willingness  to  be 
taught  by  God  and  to  receive  his  teachings  as  true  ;  it  is  earnest¬ 
ness  of  purpose  to  know  God ;  it  is  the  attitude  of  readiness 
to  give  the  assent  of  the  intellect  and  the  consent  of  the  will 
to  the  truth  respecting  God  so  far  as  God  has  revealed  himself. 
It  is  the  attitude  of  mind  and  heart  required  by  Peter :  “  Putting 
away  therefore  all  wickedness,  and  all  guile,  and  hypocrisies,  and 
envies,  and  all  evil  speakings,  as  newborn  babes,  long  for  the 
sincere  (pure,  unadulterated)  milk  of  the  word,  that  ye  may 
grow  thereby  unto  salvation”  (1  Peter  ii.  1,  2).  It  is  willing¬ 
ness  to  do  God’s  will  when  known,  as  our  Lord  says:  “If  any 
man  willeth  to  do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  teaching  ” 
(John  vii.  17).  It  is  the  attitude  of  the  willing  servant: 
“  Behold,  as  the  eyes  of  servants  look  unto  the  hand  of  their 
master,  as  the  eyes  of  a  maiden  unto  the  hand  of  her  mistress, 
so  our  eyes  look  unto  Jehovah,  our  God”  (Psalm  cxxiii.  2). 
Crude  and  rude  materialism  betrays  the  absence  of  candor, 
of  fairness,  and  of  openness  of  mind  to  evidence,  when  it  wilfully 
repudiates  the  idea  of  personal  spirit  as  unscientific,  and  on 
this  pretext  refuses  even  to  look  at  the  decisive  evidence  of 
the  existence  of  rational  free  will  and  personality  in  man  and 
of  the  revelation  of  reason  and  rational  will  in  both  the  physi¬ 
cal  and  the  moral  systems  in  the  universe.  This  is  untruthful¬ 
ness  toward  God,  the  lack  of  love  of  truth  in  dealing  with  him. 
By  no  conceivable  revelation  of  himself  could  God  make  him- 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  337 


self  known  to  a  mind  so  firmly  and  wilfully  shut  up  in  the 
prejudice  that  nothing  can  exist  that  transcends  the  percep¬ 
tions  of  sense  and  is  not  included  in  matter  and  its  motions.1 
On  the  other  hand,  wilfully  to  support  a  preconceived  opinion 
respecting  God  and  his  revelation  of  himself  by  any  special 
pleading  or  any  sophistical  argument,  by  any  unfair  interpretation, 
or  by  denying  any  established  result  of  criticism  or  fact  of 
science  is  untruthfulness  toward  God  and  evinces  a  lack  of  love 
of  truth  in  dealing  with  him.  The  untruthfulness  in  each  of 
these  cases  may  be  rebuked  in  Peter’s  words  to  Ananias  :  “  Thou 
hast  not  lied  unto  men,  but  unto  God.” 

After  the  truth  is  known,  truthfulness  toward  God  is  the  con¬ 
sent  of  the  will  in  strong  adhesion  and  allegiance  to  it ;  it  is  trust 
in  it,  living  in  accordance  with  it,  propagating  it,  if  needful  dying 
for  it,  as  the  truth  and  word  of  God.  The  trust  does  not  rest 
finally  on  the  truth,  but  on  God  who  is  revealed  in  it.  We  can¬ 
not  rest  our  whole  weight  on  an  abstraction.  The  truth  is  a 
revelation  of  God.  It  is  God,  revealed  in  the  truth,  whom  we  trust 
and  proclaim.  And  because  the  principles,  laws,  and  ideals  ac¬ 
cording  to  which  the  universe  is  constituted  and  carried  on  are 
archetypal  and  eternal  in  God,  all  truth  of  science  and  philosophy 
as  well  as  of  morals  and  religion  is  the  truth  of  God.  The  will 
consents  to  it  as  to  the  truth  that  reveals  God.  And  when  once 
we  know  God  and  trust  him,  we  believe  his  word  and  all  his 
revelations  of  himself,  so  far  as  he  has  communicated  them  to 
man.  Faith  is  taking  God  at  his  word. 

Truthfulness  toward  God  appears  also  as  veracity  and  sincer¬ 
ity  in  all  our  dealings  with  him.  We  know  that  nothing  can  be 
concealed  from  God.  Sincerity  toward  God  is  the  cordial  con¬ 
sent  of  the  will  to  this  fact  and  action  accordant  with  this  consent. 
It  takes  away  all  desire  to  conceal  anything  from  God.  It  leads 
to  a  life  of  confidential  intimacy  with  him.  The  disciples,  return- 

1  “  It  is  curious  to  see  scientific  and  realistic  teaching  used  everywhere 
as  a  means  of  stifling  all  freedom  of  investigation  as  to  moral  questions 
under  a  dead  weight  of  facts.  Materialism  is  the  auxiliary  of  every  tyranny, 
whether  exercised  by  one  or  by  the  masses.  To  crush  what  is  spiritual, 
moral,  human,  so  to  speak,  in  man  by  specializing  him  ;  to  form  mere  wheels 
of  the  great  social  machine  instead  of  perfect  individuals  ;  to  make  society 
and  not  conscience  the  centre  of  life,  to  enslave  the  soul  to  things,  to  de¬ 
personalize  the  man,  —  this  is  the  dominant  drift  of  our  epoch  ”  ( Amiel’s 
Journal,  June  17,  1852.  Trans,  p.  38). 


VOL.  11.  —  22 


338  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


ing  from  a  missionary  circuit,  came  and  told  Jesus  all  things,  both 
what  they  had  done  and  what  they  had  taught.  Like  this  is  the 
sincere  and  confidential  intimacy  with  God  which  is  the  essence 
of  prayer  and  of  communion  with  him.  In  such  sincerity  the 
Psalmist  prayed  :  “  Search  me,  O  God,  and  know  my  heart ;  try 
me  and  know  my  thoughts ;  and  see  if  there  be  any  way  of 
wickedness  in  me ;  and  lead  me  in  the  way  everlasting  ” 
(Ps.  cxxxix.  23,  24). 

Righteousness  toward  God  appears  in  its  second  form  as  just¬ 
ice.  It  is  the  consent  of  the  will  to  “  God’s  just  rights,”  as 
Edwards  expresses  it.  It  is  loyalty  or  allegiance  to  God’s  su¬ 
preme  and  rightful  authority.  It  is  willing  submission  to  God’s 
sovereignty,  —  not  to  his  “  naked  sovereignty,”  as  theologians  have 
sometimes  expressed  it,  but  to  the  sovereignty  of  God  clothed 
with  all  the  attributes  of  reason  and  wielding  almighty  power 
under  the  regulation  and  direction  of  perfect  wisdom  and  love. 
Justice  to  God  is  also  the  consent  of  the  will  to  all  the  require¬ 
ments  of  his  law  in  willing  obedience.  It  is  also  the  consent  of 
the  will  to  God’s  vindication  of  the  law  and  his  assertion  and 
maintenance  of  its  authority  by  the  punishment  of  transgressors. 
It  prompts  sinners  to  acknowledge  their  ill-desert,  to  take  the 
blame  wholly  on  themselves,  and  to  acknowledge  the  justice  of 
God  in  their  condemnation.  This  is  the  sentiment  of  the  fifty- 
first  Psalm,  which  ever  since  it  was  written  has  expressed  the  true 
penitence  of  sinners  better  than  they  could  express  it  in  their 
own  words,  and  has  been  one  of  the  “  golden  bowls  full  of  in¬ 
cense  ”  in  which  from  age  to  age  “  the  prayers  of  the  saints  ”  are 
borne  before  the  throne  of  God  (Rev.  v.  8). 

Righteousness  toward  God  appears  also  in  its  third  form  as 
complacency,  and  expresses  itself  in  adoration  and  praise,  in  as¬ 
pirations  to  commune  with  him  and  to  be  like  him.  Its  language 
is  “  Nearer,  my  God,  to  thee  ”  ;  “  O  how  love  I  thy  law,  it  is  my 
meditation  all  the  day ;  more  to  be  desired  than  gold,  sweeter 
also  than  honey  and  the  honeycomb  ”  (Ps.  cxix.  97  ;  xix.  10). 

3.  Love  to  God  appears  also  as  benevolence  or  good-will. 
This,  however,  cannot  be  shown  by  supplying  God’s  wants,  for  he 
has  none ;  nor  in  conferring  favors  on  him,  for  he  needs  none. 
If  this  were  possible,  it  would  imply  that  man  is,  at  least  in  some 
respects,  superior  to  God,  and  that  God  is  to  the  same  extent 
dependent  on  man.  Accordingly  Augustine  says  :  “  Who  is  so 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  339 


foolish  as  to  suppose  that  the  things  offered  to  God  are  needed 
by  him  for  any  uses  of  his  own?  ....  We  must  believe  that 
God  has  no  need  of  cattle  or  any  other  earthly  and  material 
thing,  or  even  of  man’s  righteousness,  and  that  whatever  right 
worship  is  offered  to  God,  profits  not  him  but  man.  For  no  man 
would  say  that  he  conferred  a  benefit  on  a  fountain  by  drinking, 
or  on  the  light  by  seeing.”  1  But  benevolence,  or  good-will  to 
God,  manifests  itself  as  a  determining  choice  or  preference  in 
every  act  of  trusting  or  serving  him,  and  in  working  with  him  in 
the  advancement  of  his  kingdom. 

II.  Duty  to  Man  in  His  Relation  to  God.  —  The  subject 
now  to  be  treated  is  man’s  duty  to  man  in  his  relation  to  God.  It 
is  the  relation  of  the  second  great  commandment,  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbor  as  thyself,  to  the  first,  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 
God  with  all  thy  heart.  It  is  the  relation  of  morality  to  religion. 

1.  The  true  and  full  significance  of  man’s  duty  to  man  is  de¬ 
termined  by  man’s  relation  to  God.  Love  to  man  in  its  true  and 
full  significance  does  not  exist  apart  from  love  to  God.  True 
love  to  man  is  vitalized  by  love  to  God. 

First,  this  is  implied  in  the  essential  idea  of  moral  law  and  gov¬ 
ernment.  Because  man  in  his  constitution  is  a  rational  and  free 
moral  agent,  he  will  be  conscious  of  moral  ideas  and  obligation, 
whether  he  believes  in  God  or  not.  But  without  the  knowledge 
of  God  he  cannot  comprehend  the  law  of  reason  and  conscience 
in  its  full  significance  and  inviolable  authority ;  and  his  doing  of 
duty  to  men  will  lack  the  vitalizing  force  of  love  to  God.  Moral¬ 
ity  in  its  true  and  full  significance  is  a  manifestation  of  religion 
and  does  not  exist  apart  from  it.  It  is  the  doing  of  duty,  not 
merely,  as  Kant  says,  as  obedience  to  the  command  of  God,  but 
also  as  the  spontaneous  expression  of  love  to  him,  as  spontaneous 
and  loving  service  of  God  in  loving  trust  in  him.  Without 
recognition  of  man’s  relation  to  God  the  imperative  sense  of 
obligation  and  duty  is  the  dictate  of  the  person’s  own  conscience, 
resting  on  no  authority  above  or  beyond  himself ;  with  this 
recognition  of  God,  the  conscience  is  itself  the  light  of  the  eternal 
Reason  shining  in  the  person’s  own  reason  and  conscience  with 
authority  absolute,  eternal,  inviolable,  in  God.  Without  this 
recognition  the  moral  law  is  only  a  subjective  metaphysical  ab- 

1  Civitas  Dei,  Lib.  X.  5. 


340  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


straction ;  with  it  the  moral  law  is  the  voice  of  God,  who  himself 
is  love,  proclaiming  the  requirement  of  universal  love  as  the 
inviolable  law  of  the  universe ;  inviting  and  commanding  all  to 
trust  in  him  and  receive  from  the  fulness  of  his  love,  quickening, 
inspiration,  and  guidance  to  participate  in  love  like  that  of  God 
himself,  manifesting  itself  as  God’s  love  does  in  works  of  right¬ 
eousness  and  good-will  to  do  good  to  men.  Without  the  recogni¬ 
tion  of  man’s  relation  to  God  the  moral  law  is  a  collection  of 
isolated  rules ;  with  it,  the  moral  law  is  the  one  all-comprehend¬ 
ing  law  both  to  God  and  man,  the  law  requiring  universal  love, 
which,  as  universal  good-will  regulated  by  inflexible  and  perfect 
righteousness,  spontaneously  manifests  itself  in  a  life  of  trust  and 
service  to  God  and  man.  Evidently,  then,  if  God  exists,  love  to 
man  in  its  true  significance  cannot  exist  dissociated  from  love  to 
God ;  morality,  in  its  full  significance,  cannot  exist  without  reli¬ 
gion.  The  doctrine  that  man  can  do  all  his  duty  to  man  without 
love  to  God  can  have  no  sufficient  basis  except  atheism. 

Atheism  gives  no  reasonable  basis  for  the  supreme  authority  of 
the  law  of  love  and  the  universal  obligation  to  obey  it,  nor  for  the 
existence  of  any  moral  system  or  moral  government.  The  exist¬ 
ence  of  the  moral  system  under  one  supreme  and  universal  law  is 
dependent  on  the  existence  of  God.  Such  a  system  and  law  are 
impossible  if  God  does  not  exist,  as  the  absolute  Reason,  the 
eternal  seat  and  source  of  that  one  universal  law  and  authority, — 
if  he  has  not  in  the  free  energizing  of  his  almighty  will  con¬ 
stituted  the  universe  and  does  not  sustain  and  direct  its  ongoing 
in  harmony  with  that  law.  And  in  that  system  there  would  be  no 
unity  and  harmony  of  character  and  of  co-operation  for  the  com¬ 
mon  well-being,  if  God  were  not  the  God  of  love  and  his  uni¬ 
versal  law  the  law  of  universal  love.  In  the  sphere  of  morals, 
therefore,  the  imperative  of  conscience  and  the  ultimate  principles 
and  ideas  of  reason  necessarily  carry  us  to  God  as  their  original 
seat  and  source. 

And  this  is  not  peculiar  to  ethics,  and,  therefore,  exceptional. 
It  is  equally  true  of  all  science.  In  a  preceding  chapter  it  was 
shown  that  all  science  rests  on  the  rational  intuition  of  self-evi¬ 
dent  universal  principles  which  cannot  be  proved,  such  as  the 
law  of  continuity,  the  law  of  uniformity,  and  the  principles  of 
mathematics,  which  all  science  assumes  to  be  universally  true 
through  all  space  and  time.  Thus  all  science  rests  on  the  as- 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  34 1 


sumption  that  the  universe  is  scientifically  constituted  and  evolved 
in  accordance  with  the  universal  and  eternal  principles  of  abso¬ 
lute  Reason.  This  absolute  Reason  is  God.  Therefore,  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  God  is  the  necessary  presupposition  of  all  science.  It 
is  equally  the  necessary  presupposition  of  all  ethics.  Science 
also  claims  to  rest  on  the  observation  of  facts.  Here  also  it  rests 
on  presentative  intuition  in  sense-perception  and  self-conscious¬ 
ness,  which  also  is  self-evident,  unproved  knowledge.  Ethics 
rests  equally  on  the  observation  of  facts  in  the  constitution  and 
history  of  man.  I  have  as  real  knowledge  that  I  am  a  rational 
and  morally  responsible  person  as  I  have  of  myself  as  existing, 
or  of  what  I  see,  hear,  and  feel.  And  from  observation  of  my 
fellow-men  and  acquaintance  with  the  history  of  mankind  I  have 
as  real  knowledge  that  men  are  rational  and  morally  responsible 
persons,  as  that  they  see,  hear,  and  feel.  Theism,  therefore, 
does  not  depend  on  self-evident  postulates  any  more  than  all 
science,  physical,  ethical,  or  spiritual,  depends  on  them.  Theism 
is  involved  in  the  fact  that  all  science,  as  well  as  all  morals  and 
religion,  necessarily  rests  on  the  postulate  that  the  universe  is 
constituted  and  evolved  in  accordance  with  the  principles  and 
laws  of  absolute  Reason.  Theism  simply  affirms  the  existence 
of  that  absolute  Reason,  that  is,  God  ;  and  by  observing  the  facts 
in  all  the  spheres  of  reality  in  the  universe,  mechanical,  chemical, 
vital,  ethical,  and  spiritual,  and  in  all  history,  it  seeks  to  ascertain 
what  God  has  revealed  himself  to  be.  It  may  also  be  noticed 
that  physical  science,  as  it  pushes  its  inquiries,  always  comes  to 
questions  which  it  cannot  answer,  and  to  difficulties  and,  some¬ 
times,  to  seeming  contradictions  which  it  cannot  solve.  The  an¬ 
tinomies  of  physical  science  are  as  obtrusive  as  those  charged 
on  philosophy  or  theology.  In  such  cases  the  scientist  accepts 
the  facts  in  the  confidence  that  with  increasing  knowledge  they 
will  be  found  to  be  scientifically  explicable.  In  philosophy, 
ethics,  and  theology  we  have  equal  right  to  take  the  same  posi¬ 
tion.  Therefore,  the  student  of  physical  science,  the  philoso¬ 
pher,  the  moralist,  the  theologian,  and  the  historian,  should  alike 
recognize  God  and  reverently  acknowledge,  “  in  thy  light  we  see 
light  ”(Ps.  xxxvi.  9). 

Secondly,  the  scriptures  teach  that  the  reality  and  significance 
of  man’s  duty  to  man  is  determined  by  his  relation  to  God.  The 
Decalogue  is  given  by  Moses  as  the  law  of  God.  The  existence 


342  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


and  oneness  of  God  are  proclaimed  in  the  beginning,  and  man’s 
duties  to  him  are  declared  first,  as  the  basis  of  all  duties  to  man. 
Thus  the  law  of  Moses  proclaims  an  absolute  morality  founded 
on  man’s  relation  to  God.  It  incorporates  into  the  political 
constitution  of  the  Israelitish  theocracy  the  recognition  of  God’s 
moral  government  of  mankind.  The  universality  of  God’s  moral 
government  and  of  blessing  from  him  to  all  men  was  announced 
in  the  original  promise  to  Abraham  :  “  In  thy  seed  shall  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth  be  blessed.”  This  great  promise  in  its 
universal  outreach  was  more  and  more  fully  unfolded  by  the 
prophets,  and  set  forth  and  realized  in  its  full  significance  by 
Ghrist,  the  Saviour  of  all  men.  Paul  brings  all  morality  into 
the  sphere  of  religion:  “  Whether  ye  eat,  or  drink,  or  whatso¬ 
ever  ye  do,  do  all  for  the  glory  of  God.” 

Religion,  even  in  its  lowest  forms,  has  usually,  and  Pressense 
says  always,  been  connected  with  morality  and  has  found  some 
motive  to  duty  in  the  fear  of  the  god  or  in  obedience  to  him. 
Matthew  Arnold  takes  a  long  step  backwards  in  regarding  moral¬ 
ity  as  independent  of  religion,  and  religion  as  merely  morality 
lighted  up  with  emotion.  As  well  might  one  say  that  daylight 
is  moonlight  lighted  up  by  sunlight.  As  the  moon  derives  its 
light  from  the  sun,  so  man  derives  his  morality  from  God.  As 
the  moonlight  is  not  extinguished  by  the  sunlight  but  is  ab¬ 
sorbed  in  it,  so  morality  is  not  annulled  by  religion,  but  absorbed 
in  it. 

Therefore  man  cannot  do  his  whole  duty  to  man  without  love 
to  God.  By  his  relation  to  God  all  his  moral  duties  are  taken 
up  into  religion.  So  the  Preacher  said  of  old,  “This  is  the  end 
of  the  matter ;  all  hath  been  heard  ;  fear  God  and  keep  his  com¬ 
mandments  ;  for  this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man”  (Eccl.  xii.  13). 

2.  On  the  other  hand,  there  can  be  no  true  love  to  God  which 
does  not  issue  in  love  to  man.  Man  cannot  do  his  duty  to  God 
in  its  full  significance  without  love  to  man  and  doing  his  duty  to 
man.  This  is  a  fundamental  principle  of  religion  and  morals. 

This  principle  exposes  a  misrepresentation  of  religion  by  dis¬ 
believers.  Feuerbach,  for  example,  maintains  that  all  religion  in 
its  essential  significance  implies  the  sacrifice  of  man  to  God ;  to 
enrich  God,  man  must  become  poor ;  that  God  may  be  all,  man 
must  be  nothing  ;  therefore,  that  the  literal  sacrificing  of  men  or 
women  to  God  is  the  legitimate  expression  of  the  inmost  signifi- 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  343 


cance  of  religion  in  all  its  forms.1  Men  in  all  ages  have  rightly 
regarded  religion  as  sacrificial ;  they  have  rightly  believed  that 
sacrifice  on  man’s  part  is  essential  to  acceptable  obedience  to 
God.  And  this  is  implied  in  the  principle  now  under  considera¬ 
tion.  All  love  to  others  is  in  its  exercise  sacrificial,  because  it 
is  using  one’s  own  resources  and  powers  in  the  service  of  an¬ 
other  ;  it  is  also  vicarious,  because  it  is  the  action  of  one  instead 
of  and  in  behalf  of  another  to  do  for  him  what  he  cannot  or  will 
not  do  for  himself.  And  it  is  in  this  sacrificial  and  vicarious  ser¬ 
vice  to  man,  in  benevolence  regulated  by  righteousness,  that  obe¬ 
dience  to  God’s  law  consists.  Love  to  God  must  manifest  itself 
in  love  to  man,  which  impels  the  servant  of  God  to  render  ser¬ 
vice  to  men  in  righteousness,  doing  all  that  he  can  to  develop 
individuals  to  their  highest  perfection  and  well-being,  and  so  to 
advance  the  progress  of  society  toward  the  realization  of  its 
highest  ideal.  In  thus  expressing  his  love  to  God  he  is  not  sup¬ 
pressing  and  sacrificing  himself,  but  developing  himself  to  the 
realization  of  the  highest  possibilities  of  his  being  in  the  likeness 
of  God  and  communion,  union,  and  working  with  him. 

But  the  history  of  religion  demonstrates  that  men  have  been 
slow  to  learn  this  fundamental  principle  and  to  conform  their 
lives  to  it  in  its  true  significance.  They  have  misinterpreted  the 
sacrificial  element  in  religion  and  have  regarded  it  as  requiring 
the  sacrifice  of  man  to  God.  Even  among  Christians  the  false 
humility  of  “  the  worm  of  the  dust”  conception  of  man,  and  the 
conception  of  religion  as  realizing  its  highest  perfection  in  the 
asceticism  of  the  desert  or  the  monastery  have  been  examples  of 
this  misconception  of  sacrifice  in  the  religious  life.  But  love  to 
God  manifests  itself  in  loving  service  to  man,  trusting  that  even 
in  the  vilest  sinner  there  is  somewhere  a  door  of  access  through 
which  the  divine  influences  and  the  noblest  motives  may  find 
entrance,  and,  if  he  will  consent,  develop  him  to  his  highest  per¬ 
fection  in  the  divine  life  of  love. 

In  the  lower  stages  of  development  men  have  regarded  even 
human  sacrifices  as  acceptable  to  the  deity.  Even  at  this  ex¬ 
treme,  the  error  may  have  resulted  from  the  misapplication  of 
truth.  It  is  true  that  we  ought  to  devote  our  most  precious  pos¬ 
sessions  to  God  ;  and  what  is  more  precious  than  one’s  own  son? 
More  influential  in  originating  this  horrible  sacrifice  may  have 

1  Feuerbach,  “  Wesen  des  Christenthums,”  chap.  27. 


344  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


been  the  sense  of  sin  and  guilt,  which  has  followed  man  like  his 
shadow,  the  consequent  fear  of  the  offended  deity,  and  the  con¬ 
scious  need  of  propitiation  and  expiation.  It  has  been  said  that 
the  ancient  Greeks  were  an  exception  to  the  universality  of  this 
sense  of  sin  and  guilt  and  the  consequent  fear  of  the  god  ;  ac¬ 
cordingly,  Carlyle  remarks  that  Socrates  was  “  dreadfully  at  ease 
in  Zion.”  But  the  representations  in  Greek  tragedy  and  mytho¬ 
logy  of  the  punishment  of  wickedness  by  the  gods,  and  of  the 
anguish  of  criminals  in  their  consciousness  of  their  crimes  and 
their  fear  of  the  wrath  of  the  gods,  and  of  their  efforts  to  find 
some  way  of  purification  from  guilt,  show  that  the  Greeks,  with 
all  their  bright  enjoyment  of  life,  were  still  shadowed  by  the 
sense  of  sin  and  of  the  need  of  propitiation.  And  from  the  cul¬ 
tured  Greeks  down  to  the  lowest  savages  a  sense  of  guilt,  a  fear 
of  divine  wrath,  and  a  conscious  need  of  expiation  and  propitia¬ 
tion  have  been  common  characteristics  of  man.  In  this  sense 
of  guilt  and  fear  of  the  avenging  deity,  men  offer  sacrifices  to  ap¬ 
pease  him  ;  and  what  victim  can  be  greater  for  the  sacrifice  than 
a  man?  especially  than  a  man’s  own  son?  So  the  king  of  Moab, 
when  hard  pressed  and  driven  to  his  last  walled  city  by  the 
enemy,  sacrificed  his  first-born  son,  the  heir  of  his  throne,  on 
the  wall  of  the  city  and  in  the  presence  of  the  victorious  and 
besieging  army,  as  a  burnt-offering  to  Chemosh,  the  god  of  Moab 
(2  Kings  iii.  27).  And  from  a  similar  perversion  and  misap¬ 
plication  of  true  principles,  though  not  pushed  to  this  extreme, 
may  have  arisen  analogous  false  ideas  of  the  sacrifice  of  man  to 
God  in  penance,  asceticism,  and  the  suppression  of  life  and  joy, 
which  in  the  ethnic  religions  have  darkened  the  minds  of  the 
worshipers,  and  which  have  not  been  absent  even  in  the  history 
of  the  Christian  church. 

That  this  is  a  false  conception  is  recognized  in  the  history  of 
the  ethnic  religions  themselves.  In  them  are  found  evidences 
of  veneration  for  the  god,  recognition  of  his  kindly  care,  and 
even  the  name  of  God  as  P'ather  and  All- father.  And  the  reli¬ 
gions  characterized  chiefly  by  terror  are  usually,  if  not  always, 
degenerated  from  a  purer  religion  with  a  higher  conception  of 
God  and  his  service. 

It  is  recorded  in  Genesis  that  Abraham  was  forbidden  to  offer 
human  sacrifices,  and  when  alluded  to  in  the  subsequent  history 
of  Israel  these  sacrifices  are  condemned  with  horror.  The  two 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  345 


great  commandments,  quoted  by  Christ,  are  found  in  the  Penta¬ 
teuch.  The  writers  of  the  Old  Testament  always  treat  morality 
as  dependent  on  religion.  They  also  teach,  often  with  great 
clearness  and  force,  that  all  acceptable  worship  and  service  of 
God  must  issue  in  benevolence  or  good-will  to  all  men,  regulated 
in  its  exercise  by  righteousness. 

But  it  is  Christ  who  gives  us  the  real  and  full  significance  of  the 
sacrificial  character  of  true  religion.  The  sacrifice  of  self  required 
in  the  law  is  not  the  sacrifice  of  the  person  himself  and  all  his 
interests.  It  is  only  the  renunciation  of  self  as  the  supreme  ob¬ 
ject  of  trust  and  service  ;  it  is  effected  in  the  act  of  loving  God 
with  all  the  heart  and  our  neighbor  as  ourselves ;  and  it  results 
in  developing  the  person,  who  renounces  self,  to  his  highest  per¬ 
fection-  and  well-being,  and  in  promoting  the  progress  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  thereby  the  well-being  of  society,  and  in 
promoting  the  well-being  of  the  person  served  if  he  is  willing  to 
avail  himself  of  the  service  offered.  And  the  sense  of  sin  and 
guilt  and  of  the  need  of  atonement  in  the  forgiveness  of  sin  is 
met  and  satisfied  by  Christ.  He,  in  his  humiliation  and  in  all 
his  earthly  life,  obeyed  the  law  of  love  in  perfect  self-renunciation 
through  sufferings  unspeakable  and  even  unto  death  on  the  cross 
in  order  to  bring  men  back  to  reconciliation  with  God.  Thus  he 
revealed  the  law  of  love  more  fully  than  it  had  ever  been  revealed 
before,  and  fully  asserted  and  maintained  the  righteousness  of 
God  and  the  universal  obligation  and  inviolable  authority  of  the 
law  of  love  at  every  step  in  the  redemption  of  men  and  in  the 
forgiveness  of  sin.  And  thus  he  made  atonement  for  sin  and 
guilt.  In  the  ethnic  religions,  men  have  expended  their  energies 
in  sacrifices  and  penances  trying  by  themselves  to  make  atone¬ 
ment,  instead  of  expending  them  in  the  service  of  righteousness 
and  good-will  to  men.  But  God  has  made  atonement  for  all  men 
in  Christ,  and  therein  has  revealed  his  love  to  the  world  and  his 
gracious  disposition  to  draw  all  men  to  himself  and  to  receive 
every  one  whom,  by  the  agencies  and  influences  of  redemption, 
he  can  induce  to  return  to  him.  Sinners,  therefore,  have  nothing 
to  do  to  make  expiation  for  sin  or  to  dispose  God  to  be  gracious. 
God’s  eternal  graciousness  is  revealed  in  Christ.  Sinners  have 
only  to  put  their  trust  in  God,  to  show  their  trust  in  him  by 
obeying  his  law  of  love,  and  in  love  to  God  in  Christ  reconciling 
the  world  unto  himself  to  put  forth  all  their  energies,  quickened 


346  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


by  divine  influences,  in  doing  good  to  men  in  the  service  of 
righteousness  and  good-will. 

It  follows  that  love  to  God  should  find  its  manifestation  in 
trusting  and  serving  men  in  benevolence  regulated  by  righteous¬ 
ness  in  all  the  work  and  duties  of  daily  life.  Christ  requires  his 
disciples  thus  to  manifest  their  religion  in  their  homes,  their  busi¬ 
ness,  and  the  common  intercourse  of  life,  to  do  good  as  they  have 
opportunity  in  love  to  their  neighbor  as  to  themselves,  and  in 
every  transaction  with  another  to  be  as  careful  to  promote  his 
welfare  as  their  own.  Because  it  is  love  to  God  which  is  mani¬ 
fested  in  the  service  of  man,  life  in  all  its  daily  action  is  sanctified 
as  religion  and  ennobled  as  service  of  God.  This  is  the  emphatic 
teaching  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  John  says  :  “  If  a  man  say,  I 
love  God,  and  hateth  his  brother,  he  is  a  liar ;  for  he  who  loveth 
not  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God  whom 
he  hath  not  seen?”  And  he  declares:  “We  know  that  we  have 
passed  from  death  unto  life  because  we  love  the  brethren.”  God 
says  to  Cain  :  “  The  voice  of  thy  brother’s  blood  crieth  unto  me 
from  the  ground  ”  (Gen.  iv.  io).  And  James  says  to  the  covet¬ 
ous  rich  man  :  “  The  hire  of  the  laborers  who  mowed  your  fields, 
which  is  of  you  kept  back  by  fraud,  crieth  out ;  and  the  cries  of 
them  that  have  reaped  have  entered  into  the  ears  of  the  Lord  of 
Sabaoth  ”  (James  v.  4).  The  cry  of  the  defrauded  and  op¬ 
pressed  is  heard  in  heaven.  And  God  says  by  his  prophet  in  the 
Old  Testament :  “  I  will  be  a  swift  witness  against  those  who 
oppress  the  hireling  in  his  wages”  (Mai.  iii.  5).  Every  trans¬ 
action  of  daily  life,  whether  right  or  wrong,  is  related  to  God, 
is  lifted  to  greatness  as  obedience  or  disobedience  to  his  law  of 
love. 

Religion  does  not  admit  any  manifestation  of  itself  as  a  substi¬ 
tute  for  trust  and  service  to  man  in  righteousness  and  benevolence. 
Jesus  rebukes  the  Pharisees  for  teaching  that  one  may  be  justified 
in  neglecting  an  obvious  duty  of  love  to  man  by  the  plea  that  he 
acts  from  a  higher  love  to  God.  He  referred  to  their  teaching 
that,  if  a  son  gave  for  religious  purposes  the  portion  of  his  prop¬ 
erty  which  he  would  have  expended  in  supporting  his  aged 
parents,  he  was  free  from  all  obligation  to  support  them.  And 
Jesus  said  to  these  teachers  :  “Ye  have  made  the  commandment 
of  Crod  of  no  effect  through  your  traditions.”  The  study  of  the¬ 
ology  renders  important  service  to  man  in  securing  a  clear  and 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  347 


exact  statement  of  all  which  may  be  known  of  God,  and  a  clear 
recognition  of  the  line  between  the  knowable  and  the  unknow¬ 
able.  But  religion  cannot  manifest  itself  in  zeal  in  support  of 
sound  doctrine  to  the  exclusion  or  diminishing  of  zeal  to  do  good 
to  man.  Nor  can  religion  manifest  itself  in  faith  in  God  and  in 
the  worship  in  which  this  faith  finds  expression,  as  a  substitute  for 
the  service  of  man  in  righteousness  and  good-will.  Man’s  trust 
in  God,  with  the  worship  in  which  it  finds  expression,  is  not  an  end 
in  itself,  but  is  for  the  very  purpose  of  obtaining  from  God  inspir¬ 
ation,  wisdom,  spiritual  power  in  the  service  of  God  by  advancing 
his  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  good-will,  and  so  promoting  the 
true  well-being  of  the  person  rendering  the  service,  of  the  person 
directly  served,  and  of  human  society. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  great  truth  that  love  to  God  cannot 
find  its  true  expression  without  love  to  man  and  the  duties  of 
righteousness  and  benevolence  which  love  to  man  implies.  Even 
among  Christian  peoples  this  truth  has  not  been  as  clearly  set 
forth  and  as  strongly  emphasized  in  religious  teaching  nor  as  con¬ 
sistently  exemplified  in  religious  practice  as  it  should  be.  There 
are,  however,  many  influences  at  work  arousing  the  attention  of 
the  church  to  this  truth,  and  indications  that  Christian  people 
will  come  to  a  higher  appreciation  of  its  significance  and  import¬ 
ance,  and  will  bring  Christian  thought  and  work  into  conformity 
with  it. 

We  now  see  that  the  two  great  commandments  of  the  law  are 
complemental ;  neither  can  be  obeyed  in  its  full  significance  with¬ 
out  obedience  to  the  other.  They  are  two  aspects  of  one  and 
the  same  law,  the  law  of  universal  love.  In  the  history  of  the 
Christian  church  we  discover  tendencies  to  overlook  this  unity 
and  to  give  preponderant  attention  to  one  with  comparative  neg¬ 
lect  of  the  other.  The  inadequate  attention  to  either  is  practi¬ 
cally  dangerous  and  cripples  the  individual  and  the  church  in  their 
character,  work,  and  influence.  If  the  fact  that  love  to  God  must 
manifest  itself  in  loving  service  to  men  is  overlooked,  the  tendency 
is  to  regard  religion  as  consisting  exclusively  in  the  worship  of 
God  ;  then  the  tendency  is  to  seek  highly-wrought  feeling,  to  re¬ 
tirement  and  meditation  in  the  life  of  worship,  to  asceticism,  to 
mysticism  and  fanaticism,  to  superstition,  to  the  pharisaic  and 
self-righteous  multiplication  of  rites  and  rules,  and  punctiliousness 
in  observances.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  fact  is  overlooked 


348  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


that  there  can  be  no  true  and  normally  effective  love  and  service 
to  man  which  is  not  vitalized,  inspired,  and  guided  by  love  to 
God,  the  tendency  is  to  a  godless  and  shallow  humanitarianism, 
which  seeks  to  better  man’s  condition  from  the  outside  by  chang¬ 
ing  his  circumstances,  by  enactment  and  enforcement  of  civil  laws, 
by  caring  for  his  physical  wants,  without  seeking  the  spiritual  ren¬ 
ovation  of  the  man  himself,  and  in  disregard  of  the  principle  of 
Christian  progress,  “  Make  the  tree  good  and  the  fruit  will  be 
good  also,”  and  without  recognizing  man’s  relations  to  God  and 
the  true  significance  of  right  character  and  the  attractive  motives 
to  it  involved  in  that  relation.  Such  humanitarianism  misses 
entirely  the  true  conception  of  what  man’s  true  well-being  is  and 
of  the  true  methods  of  realizing  it.  As  Mrs.  Browning  represents 
it,  its  advocates 

cry  that  everywhere 

The  government  is  slipping  from  God’s  hand, 

Unless  some  other  Christ  (say  Romney  Leigh) 

Come  up  and  toil  and  moil  and  change  the  world, 

Because  the  First  has  proved  inadequate  .  .  . 

For  Romney  has  a  pattern  on  his  nail 
(Whatever  may  be  lacking  on  the  Mount), 

And,  not  being  over-nice  to  separate 

What ’s  element  from  what ’s  convention,  hastes 

By  line  on  line  to  draw  you  out  a  world  ; 

Without  your  help  indeed,  unless  you  take 
His  yoke  upon  you  and  will  learn  of  him. 

Aurora  Leigh,  Bk.  viii. 

This  one-sidedness  in  the  conception  of  the  two  aspects  of  the 
law  of  love  and  the  consequent  misapprehensioqs  and  misapplica¬ 
tions  of  the  law  are  rebuked  by  Christ.  In  his  person  and  life,  as 
well  as  in  his  teaching,  he  reveals  the  inseparable  unity  and  inter¬ 
dependence  of  love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  as  two  aspects  of 
obedience  to  one  and  the  same  law.  As  the  God-man,  he  reveals 
God  himself,  in  conformity  with  the  law  of  universal  love,  taking 
the  form  of  a  servant  in  seeking  the  perfection  and  well-being  of 
man.  This  he  seeks  by  bringing  them  into  communion  and  union 
with  himself,  and  so  into  conformity  with  the  law  to  be  workers 
with  him  in  serving  men  and  promoting  their  perfection  and  well¬ 
being.  This  revelation  of  himself  he  continues  through  all  gener¬ 
ations  in  the  Holy  Spirit.  Thus  in  redemption  through  Christ 
God  is  perpetually  revealing  that  only  in  loving  communion  and 
union  with  God  are  man’s  true  perfection  and  well-being  attain- 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  349 


able.  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  to  himself  continu¬ 
ously  reveals  that  true  love  to  God  must  manifest  itself  in  love  to 
man,  and  that  love  to  man  can  be  real  and  effective  only  as  it 
springs  from  love  to  God  and  aims  to  bring  men  back  to  harmony 
with  God  in  love  to  him,  in  which  alone  their  well-being  is  pos¬ 
sible.  The  same  is  the  doctrine  of  Christ  in  his  oral  teaching. 
He  declares  the  inseparable  unity  of  the  law  of  love  to  God  and 
the  law  of  love  to  man.  In  the  Pentateuch  the  two  laws  are  re¬ 
corded  apart  (Deut.  vi.  5;  Lev.  xix.  18).  Christ  brings  them 
together,  and  declares  that  they  are  the  two  great  commandments 
of  the  law  and  that  the  second  is  like  unto  the  first  (Matth.  xxii. 
37-40  ;  Mark  xii.  30-33  ;  Luke  x.  27-37).  He  teaches  that  all 
true  love  to  man  springs  from  love  to  God,  and  that  all  true  love 
to  God  issues  in  love  to  man.  Thus  he  declares  the  inseparable 
unity  of  the  two  great  commandments  of  the  law ;  obedience  to 
one  is  never  genuine  and  complete  without  obedience  to  the 
other.  He  presents  them  in  unity  as  the  principles  under  which 
all  human  duties  to  God  and  to  man  are  summarized,  and  from 
which  all  duties  in  detail  are  to  be  unfolded  and  defined.  It  will 
be  an  epoch  in  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the 
renovation  and  progress  of  human  society  when  the  inseparable 
unity  of  religion  and  morality,  of  love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  is 
acknowledged  in  its  full  significance  and  importance,  and  the  lives 
of  all  Christians  are  in  conformity  with  the  law  of  love  in  both  its 
aspects. 

3.  The  normal  progress  of  mankind  collectively  can  be  at¬ 
tained  only  in  the  exercise  of  love  to  God  and  of  love  to  man 
in  their  complemental  unity.  Man  in  unity  and  solidarity  as  man¬ 
kind,  man  as  man,  man  by  virtue  of  his  participation  in  human 
nature,  can  be  the  object  of  the  love  required  in  the  law  only  as 
his  relation  to  God  is  recognized,  and  duties  to  man  are  inspired 
by  love  to  God,  and  are  done  by  faith  in  God  and  as  service  to  him. 

Love  to  man  implies  love  to  mankind,  manifested  in  interest  in 
human  laws  and  institutions,  in  the  progress  of  society  in  civiliza¬ 
tion,  in  all  which  pertains  to  the  welfare  of  man,  in  all  that  is 
human.  It  is  the  spirit  expressed  in  the  familiar  maxim  of  Ter¬ 
ence  :  “  I  am  a  man,  and  nothing  which  is  human  can  be  alien 
from  me.”  It  is  enthusiasm  for  humanity. 

Love  to  mankind  contemplates  all  men  in  unity  or  solidarity. 
Mankind  can  be  thus  in  solidarity  the  object  of  love  and  duty 


350  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


only  as  in  unity  in  the  moral  system.  And  they  can  be  in  the 
unity  of  the  moral  system  only  in  their  common  relation  to  God 
under  his  government  and  his  universal  law  of  love.  Men  have 
common  interests,  also,  arising  from  the  fact  of  their  common 
sinfulness.  This  has  its  significance  in  the  fact  that  they  are  sin¬ 
ners  against  the  same  God  and  the  same  universal  law  of  love. 
Hence,  also,  they  have  a  common  interest  in  redemption.  God 
is  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself.  Christ  tasted 
death  for  every  man ;  he  is  the  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the 
whole  world  ;  the  Holy  Spirit  is  poured  out  on  all  flesh.  Hence 
all  men  have  a  common  interest  in  God’s  work  of  redeeming  men 
from  sin  and  establishing  and  extending  his  kingdom.  Here  all 
men  are  in  unity  and  solidarity  in  common  needs  and  interests 
arising  from  their  common  relations  to  God,  and  in  this  unity  man¬ 
kind  becomes  to  every  Christian  an  object  of  interest  and  service. 

By  virtue  of  the  unity  of  men  in  their  common  relations  to  God, 
love  and  service  are  rendered  to  the  individual  man  as  man,  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  he  is  human,  independent  of  peculiarities 
of  character,  attainments,  or  condition.  He  is  a  child  of  our 
common  Father,  though,  like  the  prodigal  son,  he  has  forsaken 
his  Father  and  his  Father’s  house ;  he  is  constituted  in  the  like¬ 
ness  of  God  as  personal  spirit,  though  he  has  abused  his  powers 
and  lost  all  likeness  to  God  in  moral  character,  and  lives  only  in 
selfishness  instead  of  love  ;  he  is  subject  to  the  same  law  of  love, 
though  he  lives  in  transgression  of  it ;  for  him  as  well  as  for  us 
Christ  died,  and  so  has  made  it  possible  for  him  to  be  renovated 
to  the  life  of  love  and  fitted  for  the  pursuits  and  the  blessedness  of 
that  life.  We  are  not  to  love  him  for  his  rank  or  condition ;  nor 
for  his  peculiar  powers,  endowments,  or  attainments ;  nor  for 
tastes  in  affinity  with  our  own  or  character  attractive  to  us.  We 
are  to  love  him  as  man ;  we  are  to  be  interested  in  him  in  view 
of  the  raw  material  of  humanity  and  its  grand  possibilities.  From 
this  point  of  view  we  are  to  love  persons  though  they  are  dis¬ 
agreeable  to  us,  though  we  condemn  and  abhor  their  characters, 
though  we  can  feel  no  complacency  toward  them.  We  are  to  love 
them  with  benevolence  and  compassion  exercised  in  righteousness 
like  that  with  which  Christ  came  to  seek  and  save  the  lost.1 

i  “  He  who  denies  that  a  slave  can  do  an  act  of  beneficence  to  his  master 
is  ignorant  of  human  virtue  ;  for  virtue  pertains  to  the  disposition  of  the 
person  who  does  the  service,  not  to  his  condition.  Virtue  is  precluded 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  35  I 

And  man’s  relation  to  God  in  the  unity  of  the  moral  system 
is  the  only  basis  for  this  love  to  mankind,  this  enthusiasm  for 
humanity,  this  love  to  every  human  being  simply  as  human.  It 
cannot  result  from  natural  affection,  personal  friendship,  or  love 
of  family,  class,  tribe,  race,  or  nation.  These  are  all  partial  and 
divisive.  History  shows  that  difference  of  race  has  in  all  ages 
been  the  source  of  hostility  and  strife.  The  mere  physical  and 
organic  unity  of  mankind  as  a  race  “  of  one  blood  ”  by  descent 
has  always  been  powerless  to  prevent  the  feuds,  wars,  enslave¬ 
ments,  and  hatred  of  the  minor  races  into  which  mankind  have 
been  divided,  and  has  never  made  mankind,  in  unity  or  solidarity, 
the  object  of  love.  This  is  effected  only  by  the  recognition  of  the 
common  interests  and  the  unity  of  men  in  the  moral  system 
under  the  government  of  God  and  the  law  of  universal  love,  and 
especially  as  objects  of  God’s  redeeming  love  in  Christ. 

Love  to  God  excludes  love  to  an  individual  only  so  far  as  the 
latter  love  isolates  the  person  loved  from  his  relations  to  God  and 
to  the  moral  system.  This  isolation  sets  up  the  person  loved  as 
a  sort  of  anti-god,  or  idol.  But  love  to  God  includes  love  to  an 
individual,  when  the  latter  love  renders  to  the  person  loved  the 
service  of  benevolence  regulated  by  righteousness  in  recognition 
of  his  relation  to  God  and  to  his  fellow-men  in  their  common 
relations  to  God  and  to  one  another  in  the  unity  of  the  moral 
system.  In  fact,  the  service  in  which  love  to  man  finds  expres¬ 
sion  cannot  be  rendered  primarily  and  directly  to  man  as  a  whole, 
but  only  to  the  persons  and  to  the  classes  or  groups  of  persons 
that  constitute  mankind.  The  progress  of  society  is  impossible 
without  the  progress  of  the  persons  composing  society.  Society 
can  become  wiser  and  better  only  as  the  persons  composing  it 
become  wiser  and  better.  Society  can  be  educated  and  devel¬ 
oped  no  faster  than  the  persons  composing  it  are  educated  and 
developed.  Laws,  institutions,  and  social  usages  can  be  improved 
only  as  the  persons  composing  society  become  wise  enough  and 
good  enough  to  see  the  need  of  improvement  and  to  accept  the 
new  ideas,  to  devise  and  adopt  the  new  laws  and  institutions,  and 
to  practise  the  new  courses  of  action  which  the  improvement 

from  no  one,  it  is  open  to  all,  admits  all,  invites  all,  citizens,  freedmen, 
slaves,  kings,  exiles.  It  does  not  choose  the  house,  nor  the  rank  and  estate  ; 
it  is  content  with  the  naked  man.”  (Seneca,  “  De  Beneficio,”  Lib.  iii., 
cap  18.) 


352  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


implies.  Speaking  and  writing,  and  every  agency  and  influence 
employed  to  introduce  new  ideas,  to  promote  reform,  to  devise 
wise  methods  of  promoting  human  welfare  and  to  secure  their 
adoption,  can  be  effectual  to  benefit  mankind  only  so  far  as  they 
enlighten  and  educate,  convince  and  persuade  the  persons  who 
constitute  mankind.  The  result  aimed  at  cannot  be  effected  by 
the  mechanical  process  of  enacting  and  enforcing  a  new  law,  or 
even  inserting  a  new  clause  in  the  constitution  of  the  state,  but 
only  by  the  laborious  process  of  educating  and  developing  the 
people  to  receive  the  new  truth,  to  welcome  and  support  the  re¬ 
form,  and  not  only  to  enact,  but  cordially  to  obey  and  support, 
whatever  new  law  or  institution  may  be  the  outgrowth  and  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  higher  thought  and  life  of  the  people.  Civil  law  is  not 
to  be  looked  to  as  the  cause,  but  as  the  effect,  of  a  reform.  Thus, 
love  to  God  does  not  exclude  love  to  the  individual,  but  inspires 
and  ennobles  it  as  the  manifestation  of  love  to  God,  and  broadens 
it  as  the  expression  of  love  to  mankind  and  of  interest  in  all  that 
is  human.  Special  relations  involve  special  obligations  and  duties. 
Love  to  God  cherishes,  purifies,  and  elevates  all  natural  affection 
of  family  and  friends,  and  all  love  to  individuals  and  communi¬ 
ties,  and  inspires,  vitalizes  and  intensifies  this  specialized  love  by 
the  recognition  of  the  individual  in  his  relation  to  God,  and  to  all 
men  in  the  unity  of  the  moral  system  under  the  government 
of  God.  Thus  recognized  and  developed,  the  love  which  renders 
peculiar  service  to  a  particular  individual,  or  to  one’s  own  family, 
neighborhood,  or  nation,  therein  renders  the  most  effective  service 
to  mankind.  Therefore,  if  a  person  has  any  wisdom,  or  power  of 
beneficent  influence,  or  good  of  any  kind  to  impart,  let  him  con¬ 
secrate  it  with  love  to  God,  and  for  Christ’s  sake  impart  it  to  his 
own  family,  to  his  neighbor,  or  any  one  near  to  his  heart  or 
accessible  to  his  influence,  and  so  he  will  serve  mankind  and 
show  his  love  to  all  men.  And  as  people  more  and  more  act  in 
this  spirit,  the  blessing  consecrated  by  love  to  God  will  be  passed 
from  hand  to  hand,  like  the  bread  and  the  cup  at  the  Lord’s 
Supper,  and  all  the  service  of  human  life  will  be  at  once  a  service 
to  the  individual  and  to  mankind,  and  a  sacramental  service  of 
God  and  communion  with  him. 

4.  The  historical  fact  is  that  the  idea  and  expectation  of 
human  progress  have  become  a  power  in  civilization  through 
God’s  revelation  of  himself,  especially  through  his  revelation  in 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  353 


Christ,  and  man’s  knowledge  of  himself  in  his  relation  to  God 
as  thus  revealed. 

The  Greeks,  Hindus,  and  other  Aryan  peoples  conceived  of  four 
ages,  —  of  gold,  silver,  brass,  and  iron.  They  recognized  continuous 
degeneracy.  As  the  ages  pass,  all  things  depart  farther  and  farther 
from  the  point  of  their  emanation  and  grow  worse  and  worse. 
It  is  the  result  of  an  inexorable  destiny  ;  the  moving  force  of  their 
development  can  only  effect  their  deterioration.  According  to 
the  Hindus,  when  the  cycle  of  the  four  ages  is  once  completed, 
the  world  begins  anew  and  runs  through  the  same  process  of 
deterioration.1  Plato  compares  the  world  in  successive  series 
of  ages  to  a  spindle,  which  by  its  movement  fills  itself  with  thread 
and  then  by  a  reversed  movement  runs  the  thread  off ;  and  dur¬ 
ing  the  period  of  reversed  movement  the  sun  will  rise  in  the  west 
and  everything  in  the  world  will  be  just  the  reverse  of  what  it  had 
been  before.  But  Christianity,  though  recognizing  the  sinfulness 
of  man  in  its  true  significance  and  its  universality  more  clearly  and 
fully  than  any  other  religion,  yet  through  redemption  in  Christ 
opens  to  man  the  possibility  and  brings  to  him  the  divine  promise 
of  progress,  of  a  future  always  better  than  the  past. 

Accordingly  it  is  the  Christian  nations  that  have  been  the  pro¬ 
gressive  nations.  The  religions  of  the  East,  imbued  with  panthe¬ 
ism,  have  developed  a  civilization  characterized  by  despotism, 
caste,  and  stagnation.  The  Confucianism  of  China,  scarcely 
recognizing  a  personal  God,  has  been  attended  with  a  like  stag¬ 
nation.  Whatever  progress  has  recently  appeared  in  the  oriental 
civilization  has  been  introduced  from  the  Christian  nations. 
Mohammedism  in  Arabia  in  its  early  history  was  attended  by 
scientific  activity.  But  this  activity  was  short-lived ;  and  for 
many  centuries  the  civilization  of  all  Mohammedan  peoples  has 
been  unprogressive  and  stagnant.  The  wonderful  progress  during 
the  last  five  or  six  centuries,  in  science  and  invention,  in  political 
organization  and  social  order,  in  the  general  diffusion  of  knowl¬ 
edge  and  of  the  comforts  of  life,  has  been  almost  exclusively  in 
the  Christian  nations. 

This  difference  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  idea  and  promise  of 
human  progress  are  inherent  in  the  very  idea  of  the  action  of 
God  in  Christ  redeeming  men  from  sin  and  developing  the  king¬ 
dom  of  God  on  earth,  which  is  the  essence  of  Christianity.  The 

1  See  Lenormant,  “  Beginnings  of  History,”  Chap,  ii.,  Trans,  pp.  67-74. 

vol.  ir.  —  23 


354  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


genius  of  Christianity  is  progress.  Accordingly  in  the  beginning 
of  the  Bible  is  the  record  of  the  beginning  of  God’s  redemptive 
action  and  the  promise  justifying  the  outlook  of  hope  for  the 
future.  So  soon  as  man  has  sinned  God  seeks  him,  calls  him  to 
himself,  and,  while  condemning  him  for  his  sin,  receives  him  again 
to  favor  and  accepts  his  worship ;  and  he  gives  the  promise 
that  in  some  way  through  the  race  that  should  spring  from  the 
woman,  the  head  of  the  serpent,  the  Semitic  representative  of  the 
power  of  evil,  should  be  bruised.  This  promise  inherent  in  the  idea 
of  redemption,  this  idea  and  expectation  of  progress,  penetrating 
the  darkness  of  the  future  like  an  expanding  beam  of  light, 
accompanies  all  God’s  redemptive  action  recorded  in  the  Old 
Testament.  The  promise  is  renewed  to  Abraham  ;  and,  while  the 
agency  through  which  the  blessing  is  to  come  is  more  exactly 
defined  as  the  seed  of  Abraham,  the  blessing  promised  is  more 
explicitly  declared  to  be  for  all  men.  And  as  God’s  historical 
.  action  establishing  his  kingdom  continues,  the  agency  through 
which  the  blessing  is  to  come  is  more  precisely  defined  as  the  seed 
of  David  and  then  as  the  personal  Messiah,  and  with  increasing 
clearness  the  Old  Testament  declares  the  universality  of  the 
blessing  and  the  richness  of  its  import  as  the  reign  of  the  Prince 
of  Peace  in  righteousness  and  good-will,  as  the  unfolding  of  the 
kingdom  of  Jehovah,  then  germinant  in  the  Israelitish  theocracy, 
into  a  spiritual  and  universal  kingdom.  And  when  the  Messiah 
so  long  predicted  has  come,  it  is  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  ancient 
promise,  unfolding  its  significance,  extending  it  to  all  nations,  and 
perpetuating  it  through  all  time.  The  promise  had  been  a  beam 
of  light  penetrating  the  darkness ;  in  Christ,  the  sun  of  righteous¬ 
ness  arises,  revealing  the  source  and  fulfilling  the  prophecy  of  that 
gradually  brightening  dawn,  and  flooding  the  world  with  its  light. 
'The  idea  and  expectation  of  progress,  of  a  future  ever  brighter 
than  the  past,  had  their  origin  in  the  revelation  of  God  and  his 
redeeming  grace  and  have  come  down  to  us  from  the  beginning 
in  the  line  of  his  redemptive  action.  In  this  sense  the  Christian 
is  “  the  heir  of  all  the  ages;”  as  Paul  says:  “  We,  brethren,  as 
Isaac  was,  are  children  of  promise.” 

It  follows  that  pessimistic  views  of  life  are  excluded  only  by  the 
knowledge  of  man  in  his  relation  to  God.  Atheism,  in  banishing 
the  idea  of  God,  changes  the  essential  idea  of  man.  Pessimism 
is  its  logical  inference.  And  it  is  the  highest  revelation  of  God 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  355 

in  his  redeeming  love  in  Christ  which  alone  absolutely  excludes 
it.  When  God  created  the  world  “  he  saw  that  it  was  very  good.” 
And  after  man  had  sinned,  God  in  redemption  opens  to  every 
one  who  will  the  way  to  progress  in  all  that  constitutes  the  well¬ 
being  of  man,  progress  not  terminated  with  the  earthly  life,  but 
endless  in  immortality.  With  such  a  conception  of  the  possi¬ 
bilities  of  a  human  life  through  man’s  relation  to  God,  who  is 
love,  pessimistic  views  of  life  are  impossible. 

5.  The  principles  quickening  and  regulating  the  progress  of 
mankind  derive  their  significance  and  power  from  man’s  knowl¬ 
edge  of  God  and  of  his  own  relations  to  him.  This  is  strikingly 
exemplified  in  the  political  and  social  progress  of  modern  times. 

The  doctrine  of  the  dignity  and  worth  of  man  derives  its  real 
significance  from  man’s  relation  to  God.  The  dignity  and  worth 
of  man  lie  in  his  likeness  to  God  as  rational  and  personal  spirit, 
and  in  his  being  the  subject  of  God’s  moral  government  and  law 
and  the  object  of  his  loving  care  ;  they  are  revealed  in  the  fact 
that  God  esteems  him  of  so  great  worth  that  even  after  man  has 
sinned  God  comes  in  Christ  and  the  influences  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
to  redeem  him  from  sin  and  restore  him  to  reconciliation  and  union 
with  God.  It  is  revealed  not  only  that  Christ  is  “  a  propitiation 
for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world,”  but  also  that  distributively  he 
“  tasted  death  for  every  man ;  ”  and  this  demonstrates  God’s  esti¬ 
mate  of  the  worth  of  every  man  in  his  individual  personality. 

The  doctrine  of  man’s  inalienable  rights  derives  its  real  signifi¬ 
cance  from  man’s  likeness  to  God  and  his  relations  to  him  as  a 
rational  and  personal  being  and  his  dignity  and  worth  involved 
therein.  God’s  law  commands  all  men  to  act  always  in  love  to 
God  and  man,  to  exercise  benevolence  regulated  by  righteous¬ 
ness  in  every  act  to  any  person.  Therein  the  law  equally  declares 
the  right  of  every  person  to  be  trusted  and  served  by  his  fellow- 
men  in  acts  of  good-will  regulated  by  righteousness.  The  law 
which  imposes  on  every  man  a  duty  and  obligation,  guarantees  to 
every  man  the  correlative  right.  And  this  law  is  the  law  of  God, 
absolute,  supreme,  universal,  inviolable  ;  it  is  eternal  in  the  abso¬ 
lute  Reason  and  imprinted  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe. 
No  authority  or  power  can  either  absolve  a  man  from  his  duty 
and  obligation  or  annul  for  any  man  the  correlative  right.  This 
is  the  real  significance  of  the  sacred  and  inalienable  rights  of 
man.  It  is  not  true,  indeed,  that  every  one  has  an  inalienable 


356  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

right  to  life,  or  to  liberty,  or  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness  in  whatever 
way  he  will.  It  is  true  that  every  person  has  the  right  to  be  treated 
by  every  other  in  good-will  regulated  by  righteousness ;  and  that 
every  person  on  his  own  part  has  a  right  to  obey  God  in  benevo¬ 
lent  and  righteous  action.  A  government  may  by  force  prevent 
the  exercise  of  this  right ;  but  no  authority  or  power  can  annul  it. 

Christianity,  therefore,  sets  aside  the  theory  of  government 
prevalent  in  the  ancient  and  heathen  civilization,  —  that  the  indi¬ 
vidual  has  no  rights  in  relation  to  the  government  but  only  owes 
duties,  and  that  government  owes  no  duties  to  the  individual 
but  only  exercises  rights  authoritatively.  This  is  a  theory  which 
can  be  the  basis  only  of  despotism.  And  yet  Comte  sets  it  forth 
explicitly  as  the  true  theory  of  government  in  the  reconstruction 
of  society  to  which  as  the  goal  of  all  human  progress  the  preva¬ 
lence  of  his  godless  positivism  was  to  bring  mankind.  Chris¬ 
tianity  teaches  that  civil  government  itself  is  subject  to  the  law 
of  God,  and  has  no  right  to  disobey  its  commands  or  to  violate 
or  attempt  to  annul  the  correlative  rights  which  the  law  es¬ 
tablishes.  Accordingly,  the  preaching  of  Christianity  had  scarcely 
begun  when  Peter  and  John  stood  under  arrest  before  the 
Sanhedrin  and  said  :  “  Whether  it  be  right  in  the  sight  of  God 
to  hearken  unto  you  rather  than  unto  God,  judge  ye.”  And 
very  soon  after,  being  arrested  again,  Peter  said  in  the  same 
presence:  “We  must  obey  God  rather  than  men”  (Acts  iv.  19 
and  v.  29).  These  prisoners,  before  the  chief  council  of  their 
nation,  confronted  human  government  with  an  assertion  of  rights 
of  the  individual,  founded  on  man’s  relation  to  God,  which  no 
human  government  has  the  power  to  annul  or  the  right  to  dis¬ 
regard  ;  and  thus  in  its  beginning  Christianity  disclosed  within 
itself  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  doctrine  of  human  rights 
which  underlies  the  modern  progress  of  popular  government. 

The  brotherhood  of  man  has  its  deepest  significance  and  its 
practical  power  for  good  only  in  the  common  fatherhood  of  God. 
The  mere  unity  of  race  is  ineffective  to  bring  all  men  into  a 
common  brotherhood  or  fraternity.  On  the  contrary,  race-con¬ 
nection  has  been  the  continual  source  of  alienation,  division, 
enmity  and  oppression.1 

1  “  The  Gospel  of  Christ  has  this  dogma  (the  Brotherhood  of  Man) ;  but 
we  proclaimed  it  3000  years  before  the  Christian  era,  and  our  ancient  books 
contain  this  article  of  our  faith,  ‘  All  men  in  the  universe  are  brothers.’  ” 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  357 


The  equality  of  men  is  real  only  in  their  relations  to  God  as 
alike  his  creatures,  subject  to  his  law,  objects  of  his  loving  care 
and  his  redeeming  grace,  and  admitted  on  equal  terms  to  com¬ 
munion  with  him  and  to  the  privileges  of  the  children  of  God.1 

6.  The  Christian  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  as  the  redeemer 
of  men  from  sin,  and  of  their  duties  and  privileges  in  their 
relation  to  him  as  such,  is  essential  to  fit  men  for  self-govern¬ 
ment  and  to  enable  them  to  solve  the  great  problems  of  political, 
social,  and  moral  reform  and  progress.  Modern  progress  is 
characterized  by  an  increasing  trust  in  man  as  man.  A  striking 
exemplification  of  it  is  the  tendency  to  popular  government  and 
universal  suffrage.  This  tendency  has  given  us,  in  justification 
of  itself,  the  maxim,  All  men  are  wiser  than  any  one  man. 

A  dangerous  error  lurks  in  this  maxim.  One  man  with  a 
telescope  sees  farther  than  all  men  with  their  unaided  eyes.  And 
in  science,  mechanical  invention,  statesmanship,  in  every  sphere 
of  thought  and  action,  one  great  genius  will  see  farther  than  all 
other  men  and  will  communicate  to  them  what  they  would  never 
have  acquired.  All  history  has  shown  that  society  cannot  dis¬ 
pense  with  its  great  men.  Therefore  the  maxim  quoted  tends 
to  the  reign  of  mediocrity ;  it  would  substitute  the  average  of 
human  wisdom,  power,  and  character  for  the  highest.  This  ten¬ 
dency  is  exemplified  in  politics.  It  is  pre-eminently  exemplified 
in  many  attempts  to  elevate  labor,  which  are  made  on  the  principle 

(“  The  Chinese  Painted  by  Themselves,”  by  Col.  Tcheng-Ki-Tong,  Military 
Attache  of  China  at  Paris,  Trans,  from  the  French  by  James  Millington,  p. 
105.)  All  thoughtful  peoples  have  more  or  less  distinctly  recognized  the 
law  of  love  through  their  common  rational  and  moral  constitution.  The 
earlier  religion  of  China  is  supposed  to  have  recognized  a  personal  God 
more  distinctly  than  Confucianism  does,  and  the  saying  quoted  probably 
originated  in  that  earlier  time.  But  what  I  have  said  is  only  that  the  real 
significance  of  the  brotherhood  of  man  depends  on  the  recognition  of  the 
common  fatherhood  of  God.  This  is  verified  by  the  history  of  the  Chinese  ; 
losing  the  conception  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  though  the  maxim  of  the 
brotherhood  of  man  may  still  stand  in  their  ancient  classics,  they  have 
themselves  become  the  most  exclusive  and  self-isolating  of  all  peoples. 

1  “  The  Duchess  of  Buckingham,  after  attending  one  of  Lady  Huntingdon’s 
meetings  (of  Whitefield’s  followers  after  his  separation  from  Wesley),  wrote 
to  her:  ‘  It  is  monstrous  to  be  told  you  have  a  heart  as  sinful  as  the  com¬ 
mon  wretches  that  crawl  on  the  earth.  This  is  highly  offensive  and  insult¬ 
ing  ;  and  I  cannot  but  wonder  that  your  ladyship  should  relish  any  senti¬ 
ments  so  much  at  variance  with  rank  and  good  breeding.’  ”  (“  History  of  the 
Christian  Church,”  by  Prof.  Geo.  P.  Fisher,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.  p.  520.) 


358  the  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


of  the  least  work  for  the  most  money,  and  aim  to  prevent  skill, 
diligence,  and  faithfulness  in  work  from  having  any  advantage 
over  ignorance,  laziness,  and  negligence.  Professor  Tyndall 
speaks  of  the  sadness  with  which  among  the  Alps  he  saw  the 
mountains  disintegrating  and  sliding  down  into  the  valleys. 
Here  is  an  analogous  political  and  social  tendency  which  elevates 
the  low  by  pulling  down  the  high.  Society  while  getting  rid  of 
barbarisms  may  take  on  vulgarity ;  the  gain  in  the  useful  may 
be  attended  with  a  loss  of  the  beautiful ;  the  gain  in  the  material, 
with  a  decay  of  the  spiritual ;  the  sense  of  honor  may  be  dis¬ 
placed  by  the  calculations  of  expediency,  the  honest  by  the 
successful,  religion  by  adoration  of  wealth. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  history  of  all  ages  demonstrates  that 
great  men  have  often  used  their  superior  power  to  mislead  and 
oppress  the  people,  making  them  tools  or  victims  for  their  own 
aggrandizement.  They  become  Nimrods,  mighty  hunters  of  men. 

The  great  problem  of  civil  and  social  polity  is  so  to  constitute 
society  that  the  greatest  ability,  wisdom,  and  moral  integrity 
of  the  people  shall  lead  and  command  the  people.  This  has 
been  realized  in  some  considerable  degree  only  in  exceptional 
cases  and  for  comparatively  brief  periods.  The  problem  to 
devise  a  constitution  of  society  by  which  this  result  may  be 
as  a  rule  secured,  and  the  reverse  be  an  exception  speedily  cor¬ 
rected,  has  not  yet  been  solved.  Neither  under  despotism,  nor 
monarchy  limited  by  constitutional  law,  nor  aristocracy,  nor  any 
form  of  popular  government  has  either  the  leadership  in  political 
parties  and  social  organizations  or  the  government  of  the  nation 
been  continuously  secured  to  the  highest  wisdom,  integrity,  and 
ability.  And  this  result  can  never  be  secured  by  any  change  in 
the  mere  form  and  mechanism  of  government. 

Christianity  alone  gives  the  key  for  solving  this  problem.  It 
assumes  that  the  people  must  be  educated  and  developed  intel¬ 
lectually,  morally,  spiritually,  and  practically  in  order  to  be 
capable  of  wise  and  beneficent  self-government.  It  therefore 
proceeds  on  the  principle  :  Make  the  tree  good  and  the  fruit 
will  be  good  also.  It  presents  man’s  relation  to  God  as  the  most 
fundamental,  and  practically  the  most  important,  reality  with  which 
his  action  and  well-being  are  concerned.  It  therefore  assumes 
that  the  principles  determining  the  right  and  wise  political  and 
social  constitution  of  society  cannot  be  found  without  the  recog- 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  359 


nition  of  man’s  relations  and  obligations  to  God  and  of  the  sig¬ 
nificance  and  universal  authority  of  his  law  of  love.  Christianity 
does  not  deny  the  importance  to  human  progress  of  scientific 
discovery,  industrial  inventions  and  improvements  and  the  devis¬ 
ing  of  wise  and  effective  political  and  social  machinery  and 
methods,  though  it  was  not  within  the  scope  of  the  Christian 
revelation  of  God  in  redemption  directly  to  reveal  them.  But 
these  are  not  in  themselves  adequate  to  insure  the  best  political 
and  social  constitution  of  society  and  the  true  well-being  of  man ; 
for  these  make  no  change  of  character  and  aims,  but  only  in¬ 
crease  man’s  efficiency  in  attaining  the  ends  which  he  is  already 
seeking  and  which  may  be  the  unworthy  ends  of  a  supremely 
selfish  character ;  hence  they  may  be  used  to  make  more  effect¬ 
ive  the  aggrandizement  of  the  few  and  the  repression  or  even  the 
oppression  of  the  many.  Christianity  recognizes,  as  underlying 
these  and  essential  to  control  and  direct  their  use  to  worthy  ends, 
the  fundamental  principles  of  righteousness  and  good-will  involved 
in  the  right  understanding  of  what  man  is  in  his  likeness  and 
relations  to  God  and  in  the  right  interpretation  of  God’s  law  of 
universal  love.  The  right  development  of  these  principles  and  of 
the  significance  of  the  law  of  love  is  essential  to  any  true  and 
complete  sociology.  It  is  the  aim  of  Christianity  to  elevate  and 
ennoble  man  by  revealing  to  him  what  he  himself  is  in  his  like¬ 
ness  to  God  in  his  rational  and  free  personality,  in  his  relations 
and  obligations  to  him,  and  in  his  privileges  as  a  child  of  God 
through  his  redeeming  love  in  Christ ;  and  to  bring  man  into 
conformity  with  the  law  of  love  in  its  full  significance  and  in  all 
the  ramifications  of  its  practical  application.  Thus  developing 
the  individuals,  who  constitute  the  people,  in  wisdom,  in  right 
character,  in  faith  in  God,  in  physical,  intellectual,  moral,  and 
spiritual  power,  in  the  full  appreciation  of  the  possibilities  of 
humanity,  it  aims  to  fit  the  people  for  self-government.  Then 
they  will  be  both  competent  and  disposed  to  organize  society 
under  right  institutions  and  laws,  and  to  adopt  the  wisest  and 
most  effective  methods  to  promote  the  well-being  of  all.  Thus 
the  whole  tendency  of  Christianity  has  been  to  deliver  men  from 
the  reign  of  arbitrary  will  and  despotic  force,  and  to  bring  them 
under  the  reign  of  law,  and  that  law  the  eternal  law  of  love,  the 
law  requiring  universal  good-will  regulated  by  righteousness.  The 
modern  tendency  to  organize  society  politically  and  socially  on 


360  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


the  basis  of  trust  in  man  as  man,  of  trust  in  the  people,  is  un¬ 
questionably  a  Christian  tendency  and  a  result  of  the  influence  of 
Christianity.  But  trust  in  man  must  be  in  accordance  with  the 
divine  law  and  regulated  by  righteousness.  We  cannot  trust  the 
wicked  or  the  incompetent.  Hence  the  aim  of  Christianity  is  to 
make  the  people  trustworthy,  and  to  trust  them  as  soon  and  as 
far  as  they  are  worthy  of  trust. 

Accordingly  Christianity  approaches  all  persons  individually 
and  collectively,  with  all  available  influence,  to  induce  each  one  to 
renounce  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  and  to 
live  the  life  of  universal  love.  And  this  excludes  all  tendency  to 
the  reign  of  mediocrity.  It  recognizes  the  needed  and  legitimate 
influence  of  men  of  great  genius,  of  large  powers,  and  special 
attainments.  It  recognizes  also  the  necessary  division  of  labor, 
and  every  Christian’s  legitimate  business  as  a  calling  of  God. 
“  Let  each  man  abide  in  that  calling  wherein  he  was  called  ” 
(1  Cor.  vii.  20).  Its  aim  is  to  induce  every  man  to  develop  his 
powers  to  the  utmost  for  the  noblest  ends.  It  invites  him  to 
multiply  his  own  power  by  availing  himself  of  God’s  gracious 
illuminating,  quickening,  and  strengthening  Spirit,  working  in  and 
with  him  in  his  own  development  and  in  all  achievement.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  its  maxims,  Greatness  for  service  and  Greatness  by 
service,  it  demands  of  every  one  his  greatest  powers  and  resources 
and  insures  their  fullest  development.  Christianity  teaches  that 
love  to  God  is  to  be  manifested  in  righteousness  and  good-will  to 
man,  and  thus  human  work  in  every  condition  of  life  and  every 
line  of  action  is  consecrated  as  religious  service  of  God ;  there¬ 
fore  it  gives  scope  for  Christian  work  to  every  variety  of  genius 
and  talent  and  to  every  special  attainment  of  knowledge  and  skill. 
And  it  cultivates  in  the  whole  community  the  spirit  of  reverence 
for  real  excellence  and  the  disposition  to  trust  the  truly  great  and 
good. 

As  to  the  question  between  forms  of  government,  though  civ¬ 
ilization  is  far  from  being  thoroughly  christianized,  the  facts  of 
history  justify  the  conclusion  that  it  is  already  safer  in  the  most 
advanced  nations  to  trust  the  general  intelligence  and  good  sense, 
the  honesty  and  right-mindedness  of  the  people,  and  the  broad¬ 
ening,  educating  and  reciprocally  corrective  influence  on  one 
another  of  many  minds  discussing  a  common  interest  and  decid¬ 
ing  their  action  on  it,  than  to  trust  to  personal  and  kingly  govern- 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  36 1 


ment  in  any  form  with  the  expectation  that  only  the  great  and 
the  good  will  be  the  kings.  And  the  more  completely  Chris¬ 
tianity  vitalizes  civilization,  the  more  will  government  “  of  the 
people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people  ”  prove  its  superior  advan¬ 
tages.  Its  best  results  will  be  ultimately  realized  when  all  human 
society  shall  have  been  transformed  into  the  kingdom  of  God  on 
earth. 

It  is  characteristic  of  Christianity  that  it  requires  men  to  do 
their  duties  rather  than  to  assert  their  rights.  It  is  characteristic 
of  human  advocacy  of  civil  liberty  apart  from  Christianity  that 
it  calls  on  men  to  assert  their  rights  rather  than  to  do  their  duties. 
Rights  are  correlative  to  duties.  A  person  has  no  rights  except 
so  far  as  other  persons  owe  him  duties.  If  I  owe  a  man  five 
dollars  it  is  my  duty  to  pay  it  and  he  has  a  right  to  receive  it. 
It  is  common  for  men  to  insist  on  their  rights  rather  than  their 
duties.  Christ  and  the  prophets  and  apostles  insist  on  men’s 
duties  and  have  comparatively  little  to  say  of  their  rights.  They 
hold  up  the  law  of  love  and  insist  on  obedience  to  it  in  all  duties 
of  universal  good-will  regulated  by  righteousness.  This  is  the 
only  wise  and  effective  way  to  secure  to  all  men  their  rights.  So 
far  as  all  men  in  love  to  God  and  man  do  all  their  duties,  so  far 
all  men  will  have  all  their  rights.  It  is  common  declamation  that 
popular  government  rests  on  the  love  of  liberty.  But  the  love  of 
personal  liberty  is  essentially  the  same  with  the  love  of  power. 
It  is  the  desire  to  do  as  one  will  unhindered  by  any  external 
power.  Hence  the  strongest  love  of  personal  liberty  is  com¬ 
patible  with  holding  other  persons  as  slaves,  or  with  oppressing 
them  in  other  ways  and  using  them  as  tools  for  personal  aggran¬ 
dizement.  The  true  basis  of  popular  government  is  not  the  love 
of  liberty ;  it  is  the  love  to  God  and  man  required  in  God’s  eter¬ 
nal  law  and  manifested  in  good-will  to  all,  regulated  by  righteous¬ 
ness  ;  it  is  not  the  assertion  of  personal  rights  alone,  but  the  love 
which  renders  to  all  their  dues  and  so  cares  for  and  guards  the 
rights  of  all. 

7.  The  methods  and  aims  of  real  service  to  man  in  promoting 
true  human  progress  are  determined  by  his  likeness,  obligations, 
and  relations  to  God. 

The  principle  determining  the  distinctive  aims  and  methods 
of  Christian  philanthropy  is  set  forth  by  our  Saviour  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  He  recognizes  the  fact  that  food  and 


362  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


raiment,  the  physical  comforts  and  conveniences  of  life,  are  im¬ 
portant :  “Your  heavenly  Father  knovveth  that  ye  have  need  of 
all  these  things.”  But  he  bids  men  not  to  be  anxious  about 
them  nor  to  make  them  the  primary  object  of  interest  and  pur¬ 
suit.  On  the  contrary,  he  says  :  “  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of 
God  and  his  righteousness  and  all  these  things  shall  be  added 
unto  you.”  These  directions,  applied  not  merely  to  regulate  the 
life  of  the  individual  but  of  mankind,  present  the  fundamental 
principle  which  determines  the  aims  and  methods  of  all  Chris¬ 
tian  endeavors  to  promote  the  progress  of  man.  The  primary 
and  dominant  aim  must  be  to  bring  men  into  conformity  with 
the  law  of  universal  love,  and  so  into  harmony  with  God  and  with 
one  another,  and  thus  gradually  to  transform  society  into  the 
kingdom  of  God.  And  so  far  as  this  is  accomplished,  men  will 
attain  their  own  most  complete  development,  will  advance  in  the 
knowledge  and  command  of  the  resources  and  powers  of  nature, 
will  of  their  own  accord  establish  right  institutions,  laws,  and 
usages,  and  so  will  insure  the  highest  degree  and  widest  diffusion 
of  physical  good.  For  to  the  command,  “Seek  ye  first  the  king¬ 
dom  of  God  and  his  righteousness,”  our  Saviour  adds  the  promise, 
“And  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you.” 

In  seeking  this  end  Christianity  begins  with  individuals.  It 
aims  primarily  to  promote  the  progress  of  society  by  the  renova¬ 
tion  and  development  of  the  individuals  who  compose  society. 
This  is  necessary  because  society  can  make  true  progress  only 
as  the  individuals  who  compose  it  become  wiser,  abler,  better, 
and  happier,  capable  of  interest  in  nobler  ends  and  of  enjoyment 
from  higher  and  purer  sources.  This  education  and  development 
are  necessary  in  every  sphere  of  action  and  enjoyment.  They 
are  necessary  to  prepare  man  to  avail  himself  of  the  results  of 
discovery  and  invention,  if  communicated  to  him  ready-made 
from  without.  The  gift  of  a  sewing  machine  would  be  useless 
in  the  wigwam  of  a  savage,  because  he  has  no  use  for  it  and  no 
capacity  to  use  it.  So  education  and  development  are  necessary 
to  prepare  a  people  for  popular  government,  for  new  laws,  insti¬ 
tutions,  and  customs.  Nothing  can  bless  a  person  till  he  is  edu¬ 
cated  and  developed  to  the  need  of  it  and  the  capacity  to  enjoy 
and  use  it.  Men  must  be  developed  to  the  consciousness  of  the 
higher  powers  and  possibilities  of  their  being,  and  to  capacity  to 
appreciate  and  enjoy  the  higher  intellectual,  moral,  and  spiritual 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  363 


pursuits  and  attainments  in  which  man’s  true  good  consists. 
Their  slumbering  capacities  for  higher  good  must  be  awakened 
and  developed. 

The  change  which  Christianity  would  effect  in  the  individual 
is  not  merely  intellectual  development  and  increase  of  knowledge, 
but  also  moral  culture ;  not  merely  a  change  from  immorality  to 
morality,  but  a  return  to  God  in  faith  and  repentance,  and  the 
beginning  of  a  new  life  in  union  with  God.  This  is  a  new  life 
in  the  spontaneity  and  enthusiasm  of  love  to  God  and  man  as 
the  inmost  character  and  the  spring,  inspiration,  and  direction  of 
all  action.  The  aim  of  Christianity  is  not  primarily  to  promote 
man’s  physical  comfort,  but  to  bring  him  to  recognize  his  rela¬ 
tions  to  God  and  the  spiritual  system  as  his  environment,  as  real 
as  his  physical  environment  which  he  perceives  through  the 
senses.  Christianity  promotes  the  advancement  of  science  and 
industrial  inventions,  the  diffusion  of  knowledge  and  culture,  and 
whatever  constitutes  civilization.  It  does  this,  not  by  making  it 
the  primary  aim,  but,  by  aiming  primarily  to  renovate  the  man  to 
right  character,  to  awaken  him  to  nobler  ends  and  to  the 
consciousness  of  the  higher  possibilities  of  his  being.  Thus  it 
awakens  the  strongest  motives  and  the  most  strenuous  exertions 
to  improvement  in  every  direction. 

Hence,  in  promoting  the  progress  of  society,  Christianity  does 
not  begin  on  the  outside  to  change  existing  circumstances,  laws, 
or  institutions,  but  it  begins  with  renovating  and  developing  the 
individual  man.  It  does  not  aim  first  to  supply  what  man  wants 
in  the  line  of  his  present  action  and  character,  nor  to  furnish  im¬ 
plements  and  resources  for  greater  efficiency  in  his  self-seeking ; 
but  to  make  him  a  new  man  conscious  of  higher  needs  and  seek¬ 
ing  nobler  ends.  As  the  persons  composing  society  become 
wiser,  abler,  and  better,  they  will  develop  for  themselves  a  higher 
civilization  with  all  the  science  and  arts  incident  to  it ;  and  will 
ultimately  solve  the  great  problem  how  to  secure  the  highest 
degree  and  widest  diffusion  of  all  the  advantages,  resources  and 
comfort  of  human  life.  Laws  and  institutions  fitted  to  a  people, 
so  that  under  them  they  may  do  their  best  and  most  effective 
work,  must  be  the  outgrowth  of  the  people’s  life.  It  is  through 
the  healthy  processes  of  life  that  a  lobster  casts  its  shell  and  fits 
itself  with  a  new  one.  As  one  sees  the  image  of  the  sun  in  a 
dew-drop,  so  in  this  little  creature  we  see  a  type  of  the  living 


364  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


organic  growth  of  society,  changing  thereby  its  customs,  laws,  and 
institutions  as  the  living  growth  requires.  The  vital  force  of  this 
growth  is  love  to  God  manifesting  itself  in  universal  love  to  man. 

It  is  sometimes  asked  why  Christ  did  not  reveal  modern  dis¬ 
coveries  and  inventions.  But  if  he  had  revealed  them,  men 
would  not  have  been  prepared  to  receive  and  use  them.  When 
inventions  have  been  made  in  modern  times  it  has  repeatedly 
been  found  that  the  same  had  been  made  generations  before 
and  had  been  neglected  and  forgotten,  because  men  were  not 
prepared  to  use  them.  And  if  Christ  had  revealed  them,  and  the 
knowledge  of  them  had  survived,  man  would  have  missed  the 
discipline  and  development  obtained  in  gaining  the  knowledge 
and  mastery  of  nature  by  his  own  exertions.  And  Christ  would 
have  hindered  his  own  work  by  turning  men’s  attention  away 
from  their  spiritual  interests  to  their  physical  needs ;  and  so  lead¬ 
ing  them  to  infer  that  God  thought  it  worth  while  to  send  his 
Son  into  the  world  to  make  the  highest  revelation  of  God  by 
revealing  to  men  more  effective  agencies  for  accumulating  the 
riches  which  perish  in  the  using. 

In  all  its  means  and  agencies  for  the  renovation  of  men  and 
the  transformation  of  society  into  the  kingdom  of  God,  Christian¬ 
ity  proceeds  on  the  principle  that  the  primary  hindrance  to  man’s 
true  progress  is  within  the  man  himself,  —  that  it  is  his  dominant 
selfishness  which  isolates  him  from  God  and  from  his  fellow-men, 
and  tends  to  make  every  man  an  Ishmaelite  whose  hand  is  against 
every  man  and  every  man’s  hand  against  him,  —  that  it  is  the  domi¬ 
nant  idea  that  a  man  attains  his  highest  good  only  by  serving  himself 
in  getting,  not  by  serving  God  and  serving  all  men  equally  with 
himself  in  the  highest  productivity  of  his  powers.  Therefore  the 
primary  aim  of  Christianity  in  promoting  the  progress  and  well¬ 
being  of  man  is  to  root  out  the  selfishness  in  which  he  chooses 
himself  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  ;  and  this  it 
would  displace  by  the  universal  love  in  which  the  person  chooses 
God  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service,  and  serves  him 
in  obedience  to  his  law  by  love  to  man  manifested  by  trust  and 
service  rendered  in  universal  good-will  and  directed  and  regulated 
by  righteousness. 

This  exposes  some  common  mistakes  in  philanthropic  endeav¬ 
ors.  Tolstoi1  abandoned  his  work  among  the  poor  in  Moscow 

1  See  his  book :  “  What  to  do.” 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  365 


because  he  had  discovered  that  the  needs  of  the  poor  could  not 
be  met  by  giving  food,  clothing,  or  money.  After  thorough  in¬ 
vestigation,  he  found  only  one,  an  imbecile  old  woman,  who  could 
be  made  happy  by  the  gift  of  money.  He  found  that  the  poor 
were  human  like  himself,  —  that  they  could  be  “  angry,  bored, 
heroic,  sorrowful,  happy,”  —  that  their  happiness  or  unhappiness, 
like  his  own,  came  from  within  rather  than  from  without,  from 
what  they  were  rather  than  from  where  or  in  what  circumstances 
they  were.  The  mistake  which  he  discovered  has  for  ages  been 
widespread  and  dominant.  Tolstoi’s  experience  confirms  the 
recent  conclusions  of  social  science.  And  reception  without  pro¬ 
duction  is  contrary  to  a  fundamental  law  alike  of  physical  and 
spiritual  life. 

After  Tolstoi  had  discovered  this  mistake  he  retired  to  his  estate 
and  began  to  work  with  the  laborers  employed  on  it  in  daily  man¬ 
ual  labor.  Here  he  made  another  mistake,  the  same  with  that 
of  Mr.  Ripley  and  his  co-laborers  at  Brook  Farm ;  and  this  mis¬ 
take  has  also  been  a  favorite  idea  of  many.  The  mistake  is  that 
what  laborers  need  for  their  help  and  elevation  is  to  give  dignity 
to  labor ;  and  that  this  will  be  done  if  the  educated  and  wealthy 
employ  themselves  in  manual  labor.  But  by  so  doing  they  would 
injure  those  who  depend  on  manual  labor  for  their  living  by  doing 
their  work  and  to  that  extent  depriving  them  of  opportunity 
to  earn  wages.  This  error  is  also  incompatible  with  the  division 
of  labor,  the  necessity  of  which  is  a  fundamental  principle  of 
political  economy.  Man  is  many-sided,  and  therefore  has  a  great 
variety  of  wants.  As,  in  the  progress  of  civilization,  man  is  devel¬ 
oped,  his  wants  multiply.  This  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that 
his  powers  and  receptive  capacities  are  enlarged  and  multiplied. 
And  different  persons  have  different  and  peculiar  powers  and 
attainments ;  they  have  skill  in  different  and  peculiar  lines  of 
work  for  the  supply  of  these  varied  wants,  physical,  intellectual, 
moral  and  religious,  personal,  social,  and  political.  Christianity 
declares  the  duty  of  every  one  to  do  the  best  work  possible  with 
his  own  peculiar  powers  and  attainments  and  in  his  own  peculiar 
circumstances,  to  meet  one  or  more  of  human  wants.  Such  work 
in  any  line,  done  in  love  to  God,  Christianity  recognizes  as  a  true 
manifestation  of  religion  and  as  a  service  to  man  done  in  true  love 
to  mankind.  “  Whosoever  shall  give  to  drink  unto  one  of  these 
little  ones  a  cup  of  cold  water  only,  in  the  name  of  a  disciple, 


366  th£  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


verily  I  say  unto  you,  he  shall  in  no  wise  lose  his  reward  ” 
(Matth.  x.  42).  Besides  all  this,  in  the  error  under  consider¬ 
ation  there  lurks  the  assumption  that  a  person’s  own  inde¬ 
pendence  of  labor  for  support  gives  dignity  to  labor  when  he 
condescends  to  engage  in  it  and  sheds  some  of  his  own  lustre  on 
the  labor  of  those  who  are  obliged  to  work  for  a  living.  So  it  is 
not  the  dignity  of  labor  which  is  seen,  but  the  dignity  of  inde¬ 
pendence  of  labor.  The  dignity,  however,  if  there  is  any,  is  not 
of  the  labor  in  itself,  but  of  the  laborer.  And  the  dignity  of  the 
laborer  is  not  in  the  labor  but  in  the  spirit  in  which  he  labors. 
The  worker  in  any  kind  of  work  has  dignity  and  worth  when  he 
does  his  work  as  a  service  to  man  in  love  to  God,  when  he  aims 
to  accomplish  by  it  some  worthy  end  for  the  welfare  of  man.  The 
dignity  is  not  in  the  work  but  in  the  service  rendered  to  man  in 
the  work. 

“  Honor  and  shame  from  no  condition  rise  ; 

Act  well  your  part ;  there  all  the  honor  lies.” 

Christian  love  enables  a  person  to  realize  the  highest  ideal  in 
the  humblest  circumstances.  The  influence  of  Christianity  on 
civilization  has  elevated  industrial  pursuits  into  public  functions 
promoting  the  well-being  of  mankind.  In  these  pursuits  is  now 
scope  for  the  highest  genius  and  enterprise  as  well  as  for  the 
highest  Christian  character  and  service.  The  great  men,  who 
once  expended  their  superior  energies  in  war,  may  now  find  scope 
for  their  highest  powers  in  the  great  enterprises  of  industry,  draw¬ 
ing  the  nations  together  in  the  bonds  of  common  interests  and 
extending  peace  and  prosperity  instead  of  enmity  and  desolation 
throughout  the  world. 

In  his  intercourse  with  the  poor,  Tolstoi  found  that  their  idea  of 
happiness  was  to  receive  more  than  they  give.  This,  however,  is 
not  a  peculiarity  of  the  poor.  It  is  simply  an  expression  of  sel¬ 
fishness,  which  is  dominant  in  the  rich  quite  as  much  as  in  the 
poor.  It  is  what  Professor  Drummond  calls  parasitism,  sucking 
one’s  nourishment  out  of  another  without  returning  an  equivalent. 
In  opposition  to  this  false  idea  Tolstoi  infers  that  all  should  be 
taught  to  receive  less  than  they  give.  But  this  cannot  be  accepted 
as  an  adequate  enunciation  of  the  Christian  law  of  love,  nor  of  the 
fundamental  principle  of  all  right  efforts  to  remove  the  evils  of 
society.  In  the  first  place,  it  conceives  of  Christian  love  as  mani¬ 
fested  only  in  service,  overlooking  its  equally  essential  manifestar 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  3 67 


tion  in  acts  of  trust.  A  finite  being  cannot  produce  without  having 
first  received.  And  it  cannot  be  truly  said  without  qualification  that 
a  Christian  gives  more  than  he  receives,  because  he  receives  from 
God  his  being  and  all  his  powers,  and  also  all  the  agencies  and  in¬ 
fluences  of  God’s  redeeming  grace.  And  for  the  right  constitution 
of  society  and  its  true  well-being  trust  in  man  is  as  necessary  as  ser¬ 
vice,  each  being  the  expression  of  good-will  under  the  regulation 
of  righteousness.  Popular  government  and  all  real  elevation  of 
the  people  involves  trust  in  man  as  well  as  willing  service.  Man’s 
confidence  in  man  is  a  bond  essential  to  hold  society  together. 
Society  constituted  and  going  on  in  harmony  with  God’s  law  of 
love  would  show  a  continual  reciprocity  both  of  trust  and  service 
between  man  and  man.  In  the  second  place,  the  maxim  is  an 
inadequate  expression  even  of  the  Christian  law  of  service,  and  a 
false  conception  of  the  self-renunciation  implied  in  the  Christian 
law  of  love.  If  one  is  always  to  give  more  than  he  receives  he 
must  soon  come  to  beggary.  The  principle,  accepted  without 
qualification,  can  only  issue  in  false  asceticism.  It  entirely  over¬ 
looks  “the  secret  of  Jesus,”  that  “  he  who  loseth  his  life  for  my 
sake  shall  find  it.”  It  overlooks  the  fact  that  the  self-renunciation 
of  Christian  love  is  the  true  self-development,  —  that  the  Christian 
law  of  greatness  for  service  is  also  the  law  of  greatness  by  service. 
As  the  training  and  discipline  of  the  body  by  the  severest  exercise 
and  self-denial  issues  in  the  development  of  all  the  physical  pow¬ 
ers,  so  the  self-denying  and  self-renunciation  involved  in  Christian 
service  to  man  develops  the  man  who  serves  to  his  highest  moral 
and  spiritual  wisdom,  power,  and  well-being.  It  is  impossible, 
therefore,  for  any  one  to  live  the  life  of  Christian  love  in  self- 
renouncing  service  of  man  without  receiving  a  hundredfold 
more  even  in  this  present  life,  in  the  development  of  his  being  to 
its  highest  possibilities,  in  the  blessedness  inseparable  from  love 
to  God  and  man,  and  in  likeness  to  God  and  communion  with 
him.  In  the  third  place,  a  person  is  not  required  to  love  his 
neighbor  more  than  himself,  but  as  himself.  Good-will  must  be 
regulated  in  its  exercise  by  righteousness,  and  the  principle  is  that 
every  transaction  in  business  is  an  exchange  of  equivalent  services 
or  of  equal  values. 

It  follows  that  the  progress  of  society  under  Christian  influences 
and  in  accordance  with  the  principles,  aims,  and  methods  of 
Christianity  is  not  designed  to  be  effected  by  revolution  and  con- 


368  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


vulsion,  but  by  living  growth.  It  is  not  effected  by  putting  new 
wine  into  old  wine-skins,  or  by  patching  new  cloth  on  an  old 
garment,  but  by  the  gradual  advancement  of  the  people,  through 
education  and  development,  under  the  quickening  and  renovating 
of  God’s  ever-present  Spirit,  to  capacity  to  receive  and  appreciate 
the  higher  types  of  character  and  life,  and  to  use  their  higher 
powers  for  nobler  ends.  Thus  the  kingdom  of  Christ  on  earth 
grows  like  the  growing  grain.  There  are  epochs  in  the  growth  of 
the  grain  marked  by  the  development  of  the  plant  into  new  and 
higher  forms,  —  “  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  after  that  the  full 
corn  in  the  ear  ”  ;  but  these  epochs  are  themselves  successive 
stages  in  the  growth  of  the  grain,  of  which  they  are  the  natural 
results.  Analogous  to  this  is  the  vital  growth  of  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  through  the  great  epochs  of  its  history.  And  it  is  in  this 
sense  that  the  kingdom  of  God  “  cometh  not  with  observation.”  It 
is  true  that  conflicts  and  revolutions  have  attended  the  progress 
of  Christianity.  But  this  is  because  men  in  possession  of  power 
forcibly  resist  the  truth  and  the  vital  and  normal  progress  of  man¬ 
kind,  and  thus  conflict  arises  between  the  powers  of  light  and  the 
powers  of  darkness ;  and  so  through  conflicts  and  fiery  martyr¬ 
doms  arising  from  supporters  of  the  falsehood,  oppression,  and 
evil-doing  which  it  opposes,  the  kingdom  of  Christ  has  advanced 
in  the  world.  This  Christ  foretold  when  he  said  :  “  I  came  not 
to  send  peace  but  a  sword.”  But  in  these  conflicts  the  blame 
for  the  disturbance  of  peace  rests  on  those  who  resist  the  truth  and 
attempt  to  repress  by  force  the  progress  of  man,  —  or  who  take 
the  sword  to  destroy  the  preachers  of  God’s  law  of  righteousness 
and  good-will.  When  Ahab  met  Elijah  he  said  :  “  Is  it  thou, 
thou  troubler  of  Israel  ?  ”  Elijah  answered  :  “  I  have  not  troubled 
Israel ;  but  thou  and  thy  father’s  house,  in  that  ye  have  forsaken 
the  commandments  of  Jehovah,  and  thou  hast  followed  Baalim” 
(i  Kings  xviii.  17,  1 8).  So  in  Philippi,  evil  men  dragged  Paul 
and  Silas  before  the  magistrates  and  declared,  “  these  men  do 
exceedingly  trouble  our  city  ”  (Acts  xvi.  20,  21).  And  in  Thes- 
salonica  the  outcry  was,  “  these  who  have  turned  the  world  upside 
down  have  come  hither  also”  (Acts  xvii.  6).  The  answer  of 
Elijah  embodies  the  truth  for  all  time,  —  that  in  the  progress  of 
Christ’s  kingdom  they  are  to  blame  for  the  disturbance  of  society 
who  forsake  the  commandments  of  God,  and  for  selfish  ends 
resist  the  efforts  to  establish  in  the  world  the  universal  reign  of 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  369 


righteousness  and  good-will,  in  order  to  maintain  and  perpetuate 
unjust  and  oppressive  institutions,  laws,  and  usages,  or  such  as 
were  adapted  to  society  in  a  lower  stage  of  civilization,  but  are 
now  effete. 

The  conclusion  is  that  the  fundamental  principle  of  true  social 
science  must  be  the  Christian  law  of  universal  love,  and  the  science 
must  consist  of  the  development  of  the  true  and  full  significance 
of  the  love  required  both  to  God  and  man,  in  its  two  aspects,  as 
benevolence  regulated  by  righteousness,  in  its  manifestation  in  the 
two  lines  of  human  action  as  trust  and  service,  in  its  application 
in  detail  to  all  the  actions,  conditions,  characters,  and  relations  of 
men,  and  the  ascertaining  and  declaring  of  the  wisest  and  most 
effective  methods  of  insuring  the  highest  well-being  of  man  in 
accordance  with  this  law. 

8.  The  measure  of  service  due  to  mankind  is  the  ability  and 
opportunity  to  render  it.  This  measure  of  service  is  recognized 
by  Paul :  “  I  am  debtor  both  to  Greeks  and  to  Barbarians,  both 
to  the  wise  and  to  the  unwise.  So,  as  much  as  in  me  is,  I  am 
ready  to  preach  the  gospel  to  you  also  who  are  in  Rome  ”  (Rom. 
i.  14,  15).  And  of  the  same  purport  is  the  Christian  law  of 
service  propounded  by  Christ :  Greatness  for  service.  Love 
establishes  a  lien  on  all  a  Christian  is  and  has.  Whatever  his 
knowledge,  skill,  tact,  natural  or  acquired  power,  possessions  and 
resources  of  any  kind,  he  is  to  use  all  in  serving  mankind.  The 
increase  of  these  powers  and  resources  brings  obligation  to  a  pro¬ 
portionally  greater  service.  In  whatever  peculiarity  or  degree  of 
power  one  is  superior  to  others,  he  is  required  to  render  corre¬ 
sponding  superiority  of  service.  A  person  owes  different  kinds 
and  degrees  of  service  to  different  persons,  and  in  distributing 
his  service  to  individuals  he  must  exercise  his  judgment  in  deter¬ 
mining  what  kind  and  degree  of  service  he  should  render  to  each. 
But  the  measure  of  his  service  due  to  mankind  is  nothing  less 
than  his  ability  and  opportunity  to  render  it.  All  his  powers  and 
resources  must  be  used  in  all  his  action  in  the  service  of  man. 

And  this  is  obligatory ;  it  is  commanded  by  God,  required  by 
his  law.  So  Paul  recognizes  himself  as  debtor  to  this  extent  to 
all  men  ;  it  is  a  service  due  under  law,  like  a  debt.  And  this 
is  only  saying  that  all  the  service  of  benevolence  is  regulated  by 
righteousness. 

This  exposes  an  error  common  in  theology,  that  a  person  is  not 
vol.  11.  —  24 


370  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


required  by  law  to  be  benevolent;  he  is  required  to  be  just,  but 
not  to  be  generous.  This  implies  that  in  acts  of  beneficence  and 
generosity  he  is  above  law  and  independent  of  it.  This  mistake 
arises  in  part  from  the  error  that,  when  a  person  acts  in  love  so 
spontaneous  that  it  outstrips  the  sense  of  duty  and  the  person 
does  not  think  of  it  as  obligatory,  he  has  ceased  to  be  under  the 
law  ;  whereas,  in  fact,  this  action  in  the  spontaneity  of  love  is  what 
the  law  requires,  and  there  can  be  no  perfect  obedience  to  the 
law  without  it.  It  is  because  his  consent  to  the  law  is  complete, 
and  therein  he  has  come  into  conformity  and  harmony  with  the 
law  so  complete  that  he  does  not  feel  any  constraint  or  restraint 
from  it.  The  divine  promise  is  fulfilled  and  the  law  is  written  on 
his  heart.  So  honest  persons  refrain  from  stealing  in  the  spon¬ 
taneity  of  honest  character,  without  ever  thinking  of  the  law  for¬ 
bidding  theft.  Thus  they  are  obeying  the  law  more  perfectly 
than  one  who  is  restrained  from  stealing  only  by  fear  of  the  law 
forbidding  it. 

The  denial  that  benevolence  is  required  by  law  implies  the 
denial  that  the  requirement  of  love  is  the  real  principle  of  the  law. 
Benevolence  or  good-will  is  of  the  essence  of  love  to  a  person.  If 
it  is  not  required  by  the  law,  then  universal  love  is  not  required 
by  God’s  law.  Thus  the  law  is  divested  of  its  real  principle  and 
disintegrated  into  rules  of  action ;  it  requires  no  fundamentally 
right  character,  but  only  piecemeal  actions.  Those  who  make 
this  mistake  fail  to  discriminate  between  the  statutes  of  human 
government  and  the  law  of  God.  The  civil  law  does  not  require 
a  person  to  give  his  property  to  another,  or  to  work  for  another 
without  wages.  But  the  law  of  God  requires  the  consecration  of  all 
our  powers  and  resources  to  the  service  of  mankind,  not  for  wages 
or  reward,  but  in  the  spontaneity  of  love.  One  must  judge  for 
himself  what  service  he  shall  render  to  particular  persons ;  he  has 
the  right  to  bestow  his  property  and  service  on  particular  persons 
as  he  thinks  best.  This  right  Peter  recognized  in  the  primitive 
church,  when  he  said  to  Ananias,  as  to  the  money  received  for 
the  sale  of  a  piece  of  property :  “  While  it  remained  was  it  not 
thine  own?  and  after  it  was  sold  was  it  not  in  thine  own  power?  ” 
(Acts  v.  4).  But  this  determination  of  the  particular  service  due 
in  any  case  to  an  individual,  must  always  be  subordinate  to  the 
controlling  consideration,  —  what  service  to  this  individual  will  be 
accordant  with  the  law  of  love,  and  will  contribute  most  to  the 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  37 1 


advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  to  the  well-being  of 
mankind. 

The  same  error  has  led  to  the  misconception  that  God  in  the 
exercise  of  benevolence  is  subject  to  no  law.1 

The  truth  is  that,  while  God  is  subject  to  no  law  or  authority 
external  to  or  above  himself,  he  is  subject  to  the  law  eternal  in 
his  own  rationality,  in  accordance  with  which  he  has  constituted 
and  is  evolving  the  universe.  God,  in  the  exercise  of  his  almighty 
will,  eternally  and  freely  consents  to  the  truths,  laws,  ideals,  and 
ends  archetypal  and  eternal  in  him  as  the  absolute  Reason  and 
conforms  his  action  to  them.  The  eternal  and  archetypal  thought 
of  his  Reason  and  the  eternal  choice  of  his  will  are  continuously 
expressed  in  time,  revealing  his  wisdom  and  love.  Thus  in  all 
the  action  of  his  will  he  obeys  the  eternal  law  of  love.  And  this 
is  the  same  as  saying  that  his  action  is  always  in  benevolence 
regulated  by  righteousness.  Love  manifests  itself  in  good-will. 
Because  it  is  required  by  law  and  in  its  exercise  is  obedience  to 
law  and  conformity  with  it,  it  is  righteousness.  Also  because  what 
the  true  good  is  which  benevolence  seeks  to  promote  and  what 
are  the  true  and  right  ways  of  attaining  it  are  determined  by  the 
principles,  laws,  and  ideals  of  reason,  love  in  its  exercise  must 
conform  to  these,  and  so  for  this  second  reason  it  is  righteousness. 

This  error,  that  the  law  does  not  require  benevolence  but  only 
justice,  has  been  made  the  basis  of  a  theory  of  the  atonement. 
It  implies  the  truth  of  the  doctrine  of  works  of  supererogation.  A 
person  acting  in  the  spontaneity  of  love  does  more  than  his  duty, 
more  than  the  law  requires.  By  these  acts  of  supererogation  he 
lays  up  before  God  a  treasure  of  merit  not  needed  for  his  own 
justification,  and  therefore  available  for  those  who  have  done  less 
than  their  duty.  Hence  has  arisen  the  false  doctrine  of  the 
merits  of  the  saints,  available  for  sinners.  For  the  same  reason 
it  is  inferred  that  God  was  under  no  obligation  to  exercise  benev¬ 
olence  or  graciousness  toward  sinners ;  no  law  required  it ;  it 
was  not  his  duty.  His  action  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world 
unto  himself  was  done  in  the  spontaneity  of  love  independently 

1  “Justice  is  necessary  in  its  exercise;  but  mercy  is  voluntary.”  (Rev. 
Dr.  Shedd,  “  Dogmatic  Theology,”  vol.  ii.  402.) 

“  God  is  bound  to  be  just;  he  is  not  bound  to  be  generous.  Men  thank 
him  for  his  goodness,  but  not  for  telling  the  truth.”  (Rev.  Dr.  Francis  L. 
Patton,  “Retribution,”  Princeton  Review,  January,  1878,  pp.  10,  11.) 


372  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


of  all  the  requirements  of  the  law.1  Christ  in  his  humiliation, 
and  in  his  earthly  life,  sufferings,  and  death  for  man,  was  under 
no  obligation  of  law  thus  to  seek  to  save  the  lost.  If  he  had 
been  so,  he  would  have  been  doing  only  his  own  duty  and  could 
have  made  no  atonement  for  others.  But  because  in  the  spon¬ 
taneity  of  love  he  was  doing  more  than  the  law  required,  he  laid 
up  a  store  of  merits  transcending  immeasurably  the  merits  of 
all  the  saints  and  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  law  and 
to  be  a  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the  world.  Then  the  condi¬ 
tion  on  which  the  sinner  is  to  be  justified  would  not  be  the 
change  of  his  own  character  in  his  voluntarily  returning  to  God 
in  loving,  penitential,  and  self-renouncing  trust,  and  so  to  con¬ 
formity  and  harmony  with  the  supreme  law  of  love ;  it  would  be 
God’s  imputation  to  him  of  Christ’s  supererogatory  righteousness. 

God  in  all  his  action  revealing  himself  in  the  constitution  and 
evolution  of  the  finite  universe  obeys  the  law  of  love  in  good¬ 
will  exercised  in  righteousness,  that  is,  in  strict  conformity  with 
the  eternal  truths  and  laws  of  absolute  Reason  and  for  the  pro¬ 
gressive  realization  of  its  archetypal  ideals  of  perfection  and 
well-being.  The  same  is  his  action  in  the  redemption  of  sinners 
from  sin  and  condemnation ;  and  it  is  this  which  gives  to  his 
redemptive  action  its  significance  as  atonement ;  his  good-will  is 
exercised  in  righteousness ;  in  redeeming  and  justifying  sinners 
he  obeys  the  eternal  law  of  love,  asserts  and  maintains  its  invio¬ 
lable  authority,  and  so  makes  the  satisfaction  to  his  own  eternal 
law  and  righteousness  which  is  the  atoning  significance  of  his 
redemptive  action.  Therefore,  as  I  have  shown  in  a  preceding 
chapter,  in  all  God’s  action  in  the  finite  universe  he  may  truly  be 
said  to  be  serving  his  creatures ;  it  is  always  the  highest  coming 
down  to  the  lowest  to  lift  it  up ;  and  the  service  is  always  in 
good-will  or  benevolence  exercised  in  righteousness  in  strict 
accordance  with  the  eternal  truth  and  law  of  absolute  Reason. 
He  created  the  universe  in  love  that  there  might  be  persons  on 
whom  he  might  bestow  blessing  and  worlds  which  might  be  a 
place  for  their  abode,  resources  for  their  use,  and  a  sphere  for 

1  “For  him  (Christ)  who  came  to  fulfil  the  law  in  his  own  life,  it  had 
actually  ceased  to  be  law  ;  his  will  and  the  divine  will  had  become  one;  the 
latter  no  longer  stood  over  against  a  ‘  Thou  shalt,’  because  Jesus  performed 
it,  saying  ‘I  cannot  do  otherwise.’”  (Weiss,  “Life  of  Christ,”  Book  iii. 
chap.  10,  vol.  ii.  p.  146,  Trans.) 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  373 


their  action,  development,  and  well-being.  His  providential  and 
moral  government  is  in  the  exercise  of  good-will  in  wisdom  and 
righteousness  to  insure  their  perfection  and  well-being  so  far  as 
possible  in  a  finite  universe  constituted  in  accordance  with  the 
principles  and  laws  of  reason.  His  action  is  always  forth-putting, 
imparting,  serving. 

In  Christ,  God  reveals  himself  under  the  conditions  and  limita¬ 
tions  of  humanity.  Here,  also,  he  reveals  himself  in  “  the  form 
of  a  servant ;  and  being  found  in  fashion  as  a  man,  he  humbled 
himself,  becoming  obedient  even  unto  death,  yea,  even  the  death 
of  the  cross  ”  (Phil.  ii.  7,  8).  Because  God  in  his  infinite  love  is 
always  serving  in  his  highest  and  most  complete  revelation  of 
himself  in  the  redemption  of  men  from  sin  he  comes  in  the  form 
of  a  servant.  But  this  is  only  carrying  out,  in  its  highest  form  in 
the  moral  government  of  the  world  and  the  redemption  of  men 
from  sin,  the  continuous  revelation  of  God  acting  in  good-will 
regulated  by  righteousness  in  accordance  with  eternal  law  which 
has  been  continuous  in  his  whole  revelation  of  himself  in  the 
constitution  and  evolution  of  the  physical  universe  and  in  the 
constitution,  development,  and  history  of  man. 

Thus  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world 
unto  himself  is  the  most  complete  and  decisive  revelation  of  the 
supremacy,  universality,  immutability,  and  inviolable  authority  of 
the  law  of  love,  even  in  the  redemption  of  sinners  and  the  for¬ 
giveness  of  sin.  And  this  is  the  essential  significance  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  atonement ;  it  is  the  essential  atoning  significance 
of  the  humiliation  of  the  Son  of  God  in  Christ  and  of  Christ’s 
obedience,  sufferings,  and  death.  In  it  the  God  in  Christ  asserts 
and  maintains  the  supremacy,  universality,  and  inviolable  author¬ 
ity  of  God’s  law  of  love  in  the  redemption  and  forgiveness  of 
sinners,  and  the  unchangeable  integrity  and  purity  of  his  own 
righteousness  regulating  every  act  of  his  grace  toward  them  in 
strict  conformity  with  that  law.  In  redeeming  the  sinner  he  him¬ 
self  obeys  the  law  of  love  to  the  utmost  extreme  to  which,  under 
human  conditions  and  limitations,  faithful  obedience  is  possible, 
even  to  the  sacrifice  of  life  in  allegiance  to  God’s  truth  and  law 
and  for  the  furtherance  of  his  work  of  love.  This  is  God’s  highest 
conceivable  assertion  of  his  law  and  of  its  inviolable  authority 
made  in  the  very  act  of  redeeming  sinners.  This  is  not,  however, 
the  introduction  of  any  new  principle  into  the  action  of  God  and 


374  THE  LORD  of  all  in  moral  government 


his  revelation  of  himself  therein.  It  is  simply  the  revelation,  in 
its  highest  form  in  Christ,  of  the  divine  love  as  good-will  or 
benevolence,  and  also  as  righteousness  in  conforming  with  law 
and  maintaining  its  authority,  which  appear  in  all  God’s  revela¬ 
tion  of  himself  in  his  moral  government  of  rational  persons.  If 
the  persons  had  never  sinned  and  were  perfect  in  holiness  he 
would  have  revealed  his  love  to  them  as  good-will  exercised  in 
righteousness,  and  in  some  way  would  have  revealed  his  likeness 
to  them,  his  good-will  to  them,  and  his  affinity  for  them,  to  bring 
them  into  communion  and  union  with  himself,  as  effectually  as 
he  has  revealed  himself  in  Christ.  But  it  would  not  have  had 
atoning  significance,  because  these  have  always  consented  to  the 
law  in  obedience  to  it  in  the  life  of  love,  and  so,  to  the  utmost 
possible  for  them,  have  themselves  asserted  and  maintained  its 
authority.  God’s  righteousness  in  maintaining  and  vindicating 
the  authority  of  his  law  takes  on  atoning  significance  when  he 
exercises  his  love  in  the  redemption  of  sinners ;  and  the  particu¬ 
lar  modes  of  action  in  which  he  manifests  his  love  will  be  such 
as  are  best  adapted  to  the  redemption  of  sinners.  But  the  love 
will  be  manifested  in  benevolence  exercised  in  righteousness, 
asserting  and  maintaining  the  authority  of  law,  and  so  is  the 
same  with  the  love  which  he  has  exercised  in  all  his  revelation  of 
himself.  The  revelation  in  Christ  with  his  atoning  significance  is 
not  incredible  nor  antecedently  improbable.  It  is  simply  God 
carrying  out  the  action  of  his  love,  as  always  progressively  reveal¬ 
ing  himself,  to  its  legitimate  issues  in  reference  to  the  fact  that 
man  has  sinned. 

Accordingly  the  only  condition  on  which,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  it  is  possible  for  a  sinner  to  be  accepted  by  God  is  his 
turning  away  from  sin  and  coming  into  conformity  with  God’s 
law.  He  is  redeemed  not  from  the  law  but  to  the  law;  not 
from  the  righteousness  of  God,  but  to  it,  through  God’s  grace 
coming  into  harmony  with  the  law  and  righteousness  of  God. 
And  this,  as  we  have  seen,  is  possible  for  the  sinner  only  in  turn¬ 
ing  to  God  in  faith  ;  for  faith,  trusting  God,  is  the  only  possible 
beginning  of  right  character  and  of  harmony  with  the  law  and 
righteousness  of  God. 

The  erroneous  conception  of  God  as  in  the  spontaneity  of  love 
exempt  from  obedience  to  law  excludes  all  that  is  essential  in  the 
true  significance  of  the  atonement  and  all  reasonable  grounds  of 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  375 


its  necessity.  In  fact,  it  logically  implies  that  there  is  no  law  of 
God  eternal  in  his  absolute  reason  ;  but  whatever  law  there  may 
be  is  itself  only  the  arbitrary  decree  of  a  despotic  will  enforced 
by  almighty  power.  It  would  follow  that  God,  who  issued  the 
decree,  can  change  or  annul  it ;  and  if  men  disobey  he  can  by  the 
same  arbitrary  will  reinstate  them  in  his  favor  on  any  terms  as  he 
pleases.  Hence  there  is  no  eternal  basis  in  reason  for  univer¬ 
sal  and  immutable  law  and  its  supreme  and  inviolable  authority, 
nor  for  the  necessity  of  any  atonement.  The  denial  that  love 
is  required  and  regulated  by  eternal  law  logically  issues  in  the 
theory  of  the  absolute  supremacy  of  the  divine  will  in  naked 
sovereignty  above  all  law,  and  of  the  supralapsarian  decree  of 
election. 

And  if  justice  alone  is  required  by  law  and  benevolence  is  not 
required,  then  God  redeeming  the  world  in  Christ  would  make 
no  revelation  whatever  of  the  law,  and  would  not  assert,  maintain, 
and  vindicate  it  as  law  supreme,  universal,  and  inviolable  even  in 
the  forgiveness  of  sin.  On  the  contrary,  he  would  reveal  himself 
in  the  redemption  of  sinners  and  the  forgiveness  of  sin  as  acting 
in  entire  independence  of  the  law,  and  wholly  transcending  it. 
Then  redemption  rests,  not  on  God’s  eternal  law  and  absolute 
reason,  but  on  his  almighty  will,  transcending  the  law  and  inde¬ 
pendent  of  it.  Then  men  would  be  redeemed,  not  to  the  law  and 
righteousness  of  God  but  from  them.  And  the  necessary  infer¬ 
ence  must  be  that  God’s  law  is  in  conflict  with  his  love  and  his 
righteousness  in  conflict  with  his  benevolence.  For  the  error 
assumes  that  God’s  law  is  something  less  and  other  than  the  law 
of  universal  love  ;  that  righteousness  is  not  included  in  love  but 
is  antagonistic  to  it ;  that  the  spontaneity  of  love  is  incompatible 
with  doing  duty  in  obedience  to  law,  while  in  truth  the  only  pos¬ 
sible  obedience  to  God’s  law  is  the  free  spontaneous  choice  of 
the  will  in  the  act  of  loving  God  with  all  the  heart  and  our  neigh¬ 
bor  as  ourselves.  It  misses  the  essential  atoning  significance  of 
the  humiliation  of  the  Son  of  God  and  the  obedience,  suffering, 
and  death  of  Christ,  as  the  normal  consummation  of  God’s 
revelation  of  himself  in  all  his  action  rendering  service  in  con¬ 
formity  with  the  law  of  love.  In  fact,  the  advocates  of  this  error 
seem  to  forget  that  the  law  declared  and  vindicated  by  Christ’s 
redemptive  work  in  its  atoning  significance  is  itself  the  law  of 
universal  love  and  a  declaration  of  the  eternal  character  of  God 


3 y6  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


as  love.  They  depreciate  the  law  as  if  its  requirements  were 
mere  arbitrary  rules,.  —  the  punishment  of  transgressors,  by  which  it 
is  sanctioned  and  enforced,  the  expression  only  of  implacability 
and  vengeance,  —  and  all  insistence  on  the  significance  of  Christ’s 
work  of  atonement  in  asserting  and  vindicating  God’s  law  as  mere 
Pharisaism. 

Therefore,  if  those  who  hold  the  error  that  the  law  requires 
only  justice,  and  not  benevolence,  recognize  the  reality  of  law  and 
the  necessity  of  atonement,  they  can  do  it  consistently  only  by 
substituting  an  unphilosophical,  unreasonable,  and  unscriptural 
conception  of  each  instead  of  its  true  significance.  Atonement 
is  then  presented  as  some  artificial  method  of  adjusting  the  sup¬ 
posed  conflict  of  law  and  love,  of  righteousness  and  benevolence, 
some  appeasing  of  God’s  wrath  and  making  him  willing  to  show 
mercy,  some  satisfaction  to  an  offended  and  almighty  despot, 
some  suffering  by  Christ  of  the  punishment  due  to  the  sinner. 

Thus,  whether  we  consider  the  law  of  love  in  itself  or  in  the 
forgiveness  of  sinners  through  the  atonement  by  Christ,  we  see 
that  it  is  the  supreme,  universal,  immutable  iaw  of  inviolable 
authority  inexorably  demanding  of  every  person  the  consecration 
of  all  his  powers  and  resources  to  the  service  of  man,  so  far  as  he 
has  ability  and  opportunity  to  render  it,  in  entire  trust  in  God 
and  willing  obedience  to  him. 

9.  A  universal  religion  is  necessary  in  order  that  all  peoples 
may  participate  in  human  progress  toward  the  realization  of  the 
common  well-being  o.;  mankind. 

This  is  a  necessary  inference  from  the  inseparable  connection 
of  love  and  duty  to  man  with  love  to  God,  as  it  has  now  been  pre¬ 
sented.  Without  a  universal  religion  recognizing  one  and  the 
same  God,  mankind  would  have  no  common  standard  of  morality 
and  would  not  know  themselves  as  comprehended  with  God  and 
all  rational  beings  in  one  and  the  same  moral  system.  We  have 
also  seen  that  it  is  equally  true  that  mankind  would  have  no  basis 
for  recognizing  common  universal  principles  and  law  regulating 
thought,  and  hence  would  not  know  themselves  as  comprehended 
with  God  and  all  rational  beings  in  one  and  the  same  rational 
system.  Nor  would  they  know  any  ground  in  absolute  Reason  for 
physical  science  in  knowing  the  physical  universe  as  scientifically 
constituted  and  evolved  in  accordance  with  these  universal  princi¬ 
ples  and  laws.  Thus  all  human  knowledge,  whether  of  a  physical 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  377 


or  moral  system,  would  disappear  in  mere  relativity  and  individ¬ 
ual  subjectivity. 

A  universal  religion  is  necessary  as  a  basis  for  the  unity  of  man¬ 
kind  and  their  consequent  harmony  and  co-operation  in  promot¬ 
ing  human  well-being.  So  long  as  the  peoples  worship  different 
gods  the  cleavage  which  divides  them  cuts  through  the  very 
foundations  of  human  thought  and  life  on  which  humanity  rests, 
and  there  remains  no  basis  for  recognizing  a  common  humanity. 
All  that  would  be  left  as  a  basis  of  union  would  be  the  union  of 
blood-relationship  in  the  family,  clan,  tribe,  and  race,  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  has  been  always  divisive  and  aggressive.  The  gods 
of  one  nation  would  fight  against  the  gods  of  another ;  there 
would  be  no  common  standard  of  appeal  to  judge  between  the 
nations  in  their  strifes.  Everything  would  be  left  to  the  sole 
arbitrament  of  force.  But  when  men  recognize  themselves  as 
subjects  of  one  and  the  same  God  under  his  one  and  universal 
law  of  love,  as  children  of  their  common  father  in  heaven  and 
redeemed  from  sin  by  God  in  Christ  their  common  Redeemer, 
they  have  a  basis  for  unity.  And  it  has  been  shown  that  it  is 
only  in  the  recognition  of  man’s  relation  to  God  that  we  find  the 
real  significance  of  those  essential  principles  of  human  progress 
which  declare  the  dignity  and  worth  of  man,  the  sacredness  of 
his  rights,  the  brotherhood  of  man.  Here,  then,  we  have  a  basis 
for  the  unity  of  all  men  in  a  state  of  society  in  which  war,  oppres¬ 
sion,  slavery,  will  cease  and  all  peoples  become  workers  together 
in  the  service  of  mankind  by  the  advancement  of  Christ’s  king¬ 
dom  of  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Thus  only  can  the  ancient  prophecies  of  the  Messianic  days  be 
fulfilled  :  “  They  shall  beat  their  swords  into  ploughshares  and 
their  spears  into  pruning  hooks.  Nation  shall  not  lift  up  sword 
against  nation,  neither  shall  they  learn  war  any  more.  For  the 
earth  shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  Jehovah  as  the  waters 
cover  the  sea.  The  wolf  shall  dwell  with  the  lamb  and  the  leop¬ 
ard  shall  lie  down  with  the  kid ;  and  the  calf  and  the  young  lion 
and  the  fading  together ;  and  a  little  child  shall  lead  them  ” 
(Isaiah  ii.  4;  xi.  6-9). 

This  state  of  society  cannot  be  introduced  and  developed  by  a 
merely  theoretical  recognition  of  the  one  only  true  and  living  God, 
but  only  when  the  life  of.  the  people  is  actually  in  conformity 
with  God’s  law  of  love.  An  individual  can  be  saved  and  can 


378  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


realize  his  true  well-being  only  when  he  renounces  his  supreme 
selfishness  and  in  faith  in  God  begins  the  life  of  universal  love. 
Similar  must  be  the  new  birth  of  a  nation.  So  long  as  the 
institutions  and  laws  of  a  nation,  the  administration  of  its  govern¬ 
ment,  and  its  national  life  express  the  spirit  and  principles  of 
supreme  selfishness,  so  long  it  will  miss  its  true  well-being. 
There  will  be  injustice,  oppression,  venality,  favoritism,  personal 
ambition  and  cupidity,  partisan  fraudulence  and  corruption  in  the 
internal  administration,  and  war  with  other  nations,  or  peace  only 
in  the  spirit  of  war,  in  mutual  hostility,  jealousy,  and  aggressive¬ 
ness.  Nations  as  really  as  individuals  are  subject  to  the  law  of 
love  and  their  well-being  is  possible  only  as  they  are  in  conform¬ 
ity  with  this  law  of  universal  good-will  regulated  by  righteousness, 
both  in  the  internal  administration  of  the  government  and  in  all 
dealings  with  other  nations. 

I  know  that  to  those  in  the  thick  of  the  crowd  in  selfish  competi¬ 
tion  this  declaration  is  but  the  far-off  voice  of  one  crying  in  the 
wilderness.  But  like  the  voice  of  the  forerunner  of  Christ  it  pro¬ 
claims  a  great  and  enduring  reality  of  human  life.  In  fact,  it  is 
the  very  truth  which  the  forerunner  of  Christ  proclaimed  and  ap¬ 
plied  to  Israel,  and  which  was  terribly  realized,  before  the  genera¬ 
tion  then  living  had  passed  away,  in  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  : 
“  And  now  also  the  axe  is  laid  unto  the  root  of  the  trees ;  every 
tree  therefore  which  bringeth  not  forth  good  fruit  is  hewn  down 
and  cast  into  the  fire.”  For  the  axe  is  a  realitv  at  the  root  of 
every  government  that  does  not  honestly  seek  the  well-being  of 
the  whole  people  in  good-will  regulated  by  righteousness,  —  that 
does  not  deal  with  other  nations  fairly  and  honestly  in  good-will 
regulated  by  righteousness ;  and  it  is  only  a  question  of  time  when 
such  a  government  shall  fall  either  by  violence  or  by  internal  cor¬ 
ruption  and  decay.  As  I  have  shown  in  a  previous  chapter,  the 
coming  of  the  Caesar  and  the  coming  of  the  Christ  were  nearly 
simultaneous.  The  coming  of  the  Caesar  was  the  culmination  in 
a  great  empire  of  a  reign  of  force,  conquest,  and  subjugation  con¬ 
tinued  through  many  centuries.  It  was  followed  by  degeneracy 
and  decay,  presenting  in  some  of  its  emperors  monsters  of  beastli¬ 
ness  and  brutality,  looked  on  with  horror  by  all  succeeding  gen¬ 
erations.  The  coming  of  the  Christ  was  the  culmination  of  God’s 
historical  redemptive  action  among  men  progressively  revealing 
himself  to  them  as  the  God  of  love  seeking  to  draw  them  away 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  379 


from  sin  to  himself,  issuing  in  the  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the 
world  unto  himself,  and  in  his  divine  energy  in  the  Holy  Spirit 
poured  out  on  all  flesh  and  abiding  among  men  with  divine  influ¬ 
ences  drawing  men  from  selfishness  to  the  life  of  love.  And 
Christ’s  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  good-will  has  been  the 
mightiest  and  most  benignant  power  on  earth  since  his  coming. 
And  it  is  still  growing  in  numbers  and  broadening  its  influence 
throughout  the  world.1  The  coming  of  the  Caesar  and  the  com¬ 
ing  of  the  Christ,  with  all  that  prepared  the  way  for  them  and  all 
that  issued  from  them,  are  two  great  object-lessons  in  history 
revealing  the  dependence  of  all  human  progress  and  well-being, 
political,  social,  and  personal,  on  man’s  right  relation  to  God  in 
conformity  with  his  eternal  law  of  love. 

It  is  evident,  indeed,  that  even  in  Christian  nations  civilization 
is  as  yet  very  imperfectly  Christian.  Yet  we  see  that  great  pro¬ 
gress  has  been  made  in  vitalizing  civilization  with  Christian  influ¬ 
ence  and  modifying  governments  and  their  administration  in 
accordance  with  it.  Evidence  of  this  appears  in  the  abolition  of 
slavery  by  the  Christian  nations,  in  the  progressive  displacement 
of  despotism  by  constitutional  government,  in  the  wider  preva¬ 
lence  and  the  better  understanding  of  the  principles  of  popular 
government,  in  the  general  condemnation  of  wars  of  conquest  and  in 
their  lessening  frequency,  in  the  prominence  of  moral  and  human¬ 
itarian  questions  in  public  discussions,  in  the  multitude  of  reform¬ 
atory  and  benevolent  associations  and  institutions,  and  in  many 
other  manifestations  of  Christian  influence  in  modern  civilization. 
And  here  we  see  further  exemplification  of  the  truth  that  society 
can  advance  only  as  the  individuals  composing  it  advance,  —  that 
governments  will  not  act  on  the  Christian  principles  of  righteous¬ 
ness  and  good-will  except  as  the  people  themselves  have  formed 

1  The  increase  in  the  Christian  churches  in  the  United  States  is  given  as 
follows  in  the  “  Independent”  (August,  1889)  :  “Certainly  a  net  increase  of 
nearly  877,000  Christians  for  the  year  is  no  insignificant  return.  The  deaths 
among  the  19,790,323  Christians  of  last  year  must  have  made  a  large  figure. 
This  loss  and  all  other  losses  have  been  made  good  by  conversions  and  im¬ 
migration,  and  nearly  900,000  gained  in  addition.  We  now  have  142,767 
churches  and  98,322  ministers,  showing  a  net  gain  of  3,882  churches  and 
3,865  ministers.  A  clear  addition  of  an  average  of  between  ten  and  eleven 
churches,  and  as  many  ministers  every  day  in  the  year,  does  not  appear  to 
indicate  decline  of  power  of  growth.  A  daily  harvest  of  240  souls  is  not 
symptomatic  of  that  decay  which  certain  sceptics  profess  to  discover  in 
Christianity  in  this  country.” 


380  the  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


characters  accordant  with  these  principles,  regulate  their  own 
conduct  by  them  and  demand  that  the  government  shall  regulate 
its  action  by  the  same. 

Here  the  question  arises,  What  will  this  universal  religion  be  ? 
Christianity  claims  to  be  the  one  and  only  universal  religion.  It 
says  ot  Christ :  “  There  is  no  other  name  under  heaven  given 
among  men  by  which  we  must  be  saved.”  And  an  examination 
of  the  spiritual  needs  of  men  and  of  the  adaptation  of  Christianity, 
contrasted  with  that  of  other  religions,  to  meet  them,  abundantly 
confirms  this  claim.  There  are  important  truths  in  the  non- 
Christian  religions.  “  God  has  not  left  himself  without  witness  ” 
in  any  one  of  these  (Acts  xiv.  17).  Christianity  takes  up  into 
itself  whatever  truth  is  recognized  in  any  one  of  them.  But  it 
presents  distinctive  peculiarities  essential  to  the  universal  religion 
which  all  other  religions  lack.  It  would  be  out  of  place  here  to 
attempt  a  full  presentation  of  these  peculiarities.  I  will  only  refer 
to  a  single  one. 

Because  men  are  conscious  of  sin  and  guilt,  the  universal  reli¬ 
gion  must  present  a  way  to  deliver  them  from  the  fear  of  God’s 
displeasure,  so  that  their  religious  service  shall  no  longer  consist 
in  efforts  of  their  own  to  make  expiation  for  sin  and  so  to  propiti¬ 
ate  the  offended  deity.  In  doing  this  it  must  satisfy  the  demands 
of  the  sinner’s  own  reason  and  conscience  in  his  consciousness  of 
deserving  God’s  displeasure  by  presenting  God’s  revelation  of 
himself  as  redeeming  men  from  sin  in  such  a  way  that  in  the  very 
act  of  seeking  the  sinner  to  save  him  from  his  sin  he  asserts  and 
maintains  the  law,  manifests  his  compassion  and  mercy  in  har¬ 
mony  with  righteousness,  and  makes  atonement  for  the  sinner 
while  forgiving  him.  Thus  God  releases  the  sinner  who  trusts  his 
redeeming  grace  from  the  necessity  of  doing  anything  to  make 
expiation  for  sin  and  to  propitiate  God,  delivers  him  from  the 
consciousness  of  condemnation  and  brings  him  to  the  conscious¬ 
ness  of  forgiveness,  and  of  reconciliation  and  peace  with  God. 
The  universal  religion  must  also  meet  the  sinner’s  consciousness 
of  ignorance,  weakness,  and  bondage  under  sin  by  recognizing 
God  revealing  himself  as  active  among  men  in  gracious  and  re¬ 
demptive  action  to  quicken  them  to  accept  his  grace,  and  to  guide 
and  sustain  them  in  the  new  life  of  loving  trust  and  service.  And 
it  must  present  this  grace  as  accessible  to  all,  so  that  whosoever 
will  may  come  boldly  unto  the  throne  of  grace,  that  he  may  obtain 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  38  I 


mercy  and  find  grace  to  help  in  time  of  need  (Heb.  iv.  16). 
This  implies  a  peculiar  line  of  God’s  action  in  human  history 
seeking  to  save  sinners  from  sin,  and  in  this  course  of  action 
revealing  himself  as  their  redeemer,  at  once  compassionate  and 
righteous,  at  once  forgiving  them  their  transgression  of  the  law 
and  asserting  and  maintaining  the  universality  and  immutability, 
and  the  supreme  and  inviolable  authority  of  the  law.  The  knowl¬ 
edge  of  God  is  not  to  be  attained  by  dint  of  mere  human  think¬ 
ing,  by  mere  philosophical  thought  in  its  heights  and  its  depths. 
If  that  were  all  God  would  be  only  a  subjective  idea  created  by 
human  thought.  The  real  knowledge  of  God  presupposes  his 
revelation  of  himself  by  his  own  action  in  some  way.  He  has 
revealed  himself  in  the  constitution  of  man  and  of  the  physical 
universe  ;  by  studying  these  we  read  God’s  thoughts,  we  find  the 
principles  and  laws  of  reason  according  to  which  he  acts,  the 
rational  ideals  which  he  is  progressively  realizing.  All  science 
and  philosophy  are  studies  of  God’s  revelation  of  himself.  In 
addition  to  this,  God  is  continuously  active  in  the  course  of  nature 
and  the  history  of  man,  and  thus  is  continuously  revealing  him¬ 
self,  —  as  the  human  spirit  reveals  itself  through  the  body  by  the 
expression  of  the  face,  by  attitude  and  gestures,  and  by  work  in 
accordance  with  plans  and  for  definite  ends.  The  human  soul 
reveals  itself  in  a  momentary  smile,  frown,  or  gesture  ;  God’s  analo¬ 
gous  revelation  of  himself  in  the  physical  universe  or  in  human 
history  may  be  in  the  process  of  ages  ;  the  human  soul  reveals 
itself  in  plans  for  a  day  or  a  year,  God  in  plans  for  all  time.  God 
also  is  continually  revealing  himself  in  the  action  of  his  Spirit  on 
the  human  Spirit,  bringing  on  it  heavenly  influences,  and  so  mak¬ 
ing  possible  man’s  direct  communion  with  God.  God  reveals 
himself  in  these  ways  to  all  men  ;  and  all  religions  assume  the 
reality  of  the  deity’s  revealing  himself  to  men.  But  when  we 
come  to  the  question  of  the  forgiveness  of  sin,  of  the  reconcilia¬ 
tion  of  sinners  to  God  and  their  restoration  to  union  with  him  and 
to  all  the  privileges  of  the  children  of  God,  additional  revelation 
as  to  the  possibility  and  conditions  of  the  reconciliation  is 
needed  ;  and  without  this  a  universal  religion,  meeting  all  man’s 
spiritual  needs,  is  impossible. 

This  peculiar  revelation  God  has  made  in  Christ,  and  in  God’s 
distinctive  revelation  of  himself  in  the  history  of  Israel  preparatory 
to  Christ’s  coming  and  culminating  in  it.  In  this  preparatory 


382  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

stage  of  his  redemptive  work  God  was  cherishing  his  kingdom  in 
its  germinal  and  immature  condition,  preparatory  to  its  being 
unfolded  into  a  spiritual  and  universal  kingdom  in  the  coming 
of  Christ  and  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  all  man¬ 
kind.  And  all  the  truths  revealed  to  other  nations,  and 
more  or  less  clearly  apprehended  in  the  religions  of  the 
world,  are  taken  up  into  the  revelation  in  Christ  and  presented 
in  their  true  significance  and  relations.  All  the  flashes  and 
beams  of  light  enlightening  particular  individuals  or  peoples 
are  gathered  in  him  in  whom  the  light  that  lighteth  every 
man  came  into  the  world.  And  on  account  of  this  peculiar 
revelation  of  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself, 
Christianity  claims  that  it  is  the  one  and  only  religion  for  all 
mankind. 

The  only  other  religions  whose  claims  to  be  the  universal 
religion  are  worthy  of  consideration  are  Judaism,  Buddhism,  and 
Mohammedism.  Judaism  is  only  Christianity  in  its  rudimentary 
and  immature  form,  a  child  become  old  without  growing  and 
maturing.  The  Old  Testament  looks  forward  to  the  Messiah 
and  the  development  of  the  theocracy  of  Israel  into  a  universal 
and  spiritual  kingdom.  In  rejecting  the  Christ,  Judaism  destroyed 
its  power  to  be  the  light  and  hope  of  mankind.  Buddhism  in 
its  different  forms  is  always  pantheistic  or  atheistic,  and  pessimis¬ 
tic.  It  regards  individuation  in  a  finite  personality  as  the  essen¬ 
tial  evil ;  and  the  only  redemption  from  evil  is  the  extinction  of 
the  individual  person  by  his  being  reabsorbed  into  the  infinite 
and  absolute.  Its  religion  in  its  highest  form  is  retirement  from 
the  active  world,  living  by  begging  in  extreme  asceticism. 
There  is  no  place  in  it  for  the  idea  of  progress  or  for  the 
hope  of  a  future  better  than  the  past,  and  no  motive  stimu¬ 
lating  to  seek  it.  Mohammedism  is  monotheistic.  But  its 
one  God  is  an  absolute  and  arbitrary  will  predestinating  all 
things  and  scarcely  distinguishable  from  blind  fate ;  its  heaven  is 
sensual  pleasure  ;  its  appeal  has  always  been  to  the  sword  ;  and 
to  this  day  in  countries  under  Moslem  rule  death  is  the  penalty 
on  every  Moslem  who  forsakes  the  Moslem  faith ;  and  its  high¬ 
est  product  is  “  the  unspeakable  Turk.”  Each  of  these  three 
religions  fails  to  present  the  grace  of  God  redeeming  men  from 
sin,  and  no  one  of  them  can  insure  the  renovation  of  man  or 
inspire  him  with  hope  for  the  future  or  quicken  him  to  work 


DUTIES  TO  GOD,  AND  TO  MAN  IN  RELATION  TO  GOD  383 


in  the  spontaneity  of  love  and  in  enthusiasm  for  humanity  to 
promote  the  progress  of  mankind. 

The  necessary  inference  is  that  Christians  are  imperatively  re¬ 
quired,  by  the  law  of  love  and  by  Christ  himself,  whose  life  was 
the  revelation  of  God’s  love  and  the  realized  ideal  of  man’s  love, 
to  go  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel  of  Christ  to  every 
creature ;  and  this  is  the  primary  and  indispensable  requisite 
for  the  progress  of  individuals  and  nations  toward  realizing  their 
true  well-being  and  for  the  bringing  of  all  mankind  into  the 
unity  of  reciprocal  trust  and  service  in  Christian  love,  in  good¬ 
will  regulated  by  righteousness  under  the  reign  of  Christ,  —  “  that 
in  the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee  should  bow  and  every  tongue 
confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord,  to  the  glory  of  God  the  Father  ” 
(Phil.  ii.  10,  11). 

If  Christianity  is  to  be  the  one  universal  religion  it  must  be 
Christianity  in  its  essential  and  comprehensive  characteristics, 
not  restricted  and  disintegrated  by  the  minor  and  sometimes 
petty  differences  of  sects.  These  differences  among  believers 
in  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself  dwindle  into 
comparative  insignificance  when  it  is  proposed  to  make  Chris¬ 
tianity  the  one  religion  for  all  mankind ;  and  at  the  same  time 
their  power  to  hinder  and  the  malign  influence  always  inherent 
in  them  are  revealed.  How  to  remove  this  evil  and  to  bring 
all  the  Christian  forces  into  united  action  for  the  christianizing 
of  the  world  is  a  problem  which  still  awaits  solution.  Doubtless 
there  will  always  be  among  Christians  difference  of  opinion  as 
to  minor  points  and  forms  of  statement  of  doctrines  and  differ¬ 
ence  of  preference  as  to  forms  of  worship  and  methods  of  Chris¬ 
tian  work.  But  it  may  reasonably  be  expected  that  the  time 
is  coming  when,  notwithstanding  these  differences,  Christian 
churches  of  different  denominations  will  cease  to  expend  a  large 
part  of  their  energies  in  jealously  guarding  against  or  even  oppos¬ 
ing  one  another  and  concentrate  them  on  the  common  Christian 
work,  —  and  so  present  a  united  front  against  the  powers  of  evil 
at  home  and  abroad  and  work  together  in  mutual  helpfulness  in 
extending  the  kingdom  of  Christ  throughout  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 

Service  to  mankind  must  be  distributed.  It  is  primarily  ser¬ 
vice  to  individuals  in  specific  acts.  We  are  to  serve  man  by 
serving  men.  This  is  implied  in  Christ’s  teaching  that  love 
to  man  is  love  to  one’s  neighbor.  He  does  not  say  mankind, 
but  neighbor,  that  the  love  may  not  evaporate  in  sentiment 
by  being  diffused  among  a  multitude,  but  may  be  concentred 
and  made  real  in  some  specific  service  to  an  individual.  And 
in  saying  neighbor  he  means  one  who  is  nigh  to  us  with  whom  we 
come  into  personal  contact.  In  the  story  of  the  good  Samaritan 
he  defines  our  neighbor  as  any  one,  even  a  stranger  or  an  enemy, 
who  is,  however  casually,  within  reach  of  our  influence  and 
whom  we  have  ability  and  opportunity  to  serve.  A  person  may, 
indeed,  have  good-will  to  all,  may  render  service  to  persons 
with  whom  he  never  came  in  contact,  service  to  humanity  out- 
reaching  all  specific  acts  to  individuals.  But  no  enthusiasm  for 
humanity  can  be  a  substitute  displacing  the  obligation  to  specific 
acts  of  service  to  individuals  or  to  particular  communities  of 
individuals  so  far  as  we  have  ability  and  opportunity  to  render 
the  service. 

The  plan  of  this  work  does  not  permit  the  definition  and 
classification  of  duties  to  particular  persons  and  communities, 
which  would  be  necessary  in  a  treatise  on  ethics.  And,  however 
precise  and  minute  such  definition  and  classification  may  be, 
it  is  impossible  to  give  definitions  and  rules  adequate  to  deter¬ 
mine  in  every  given  case  what  particular  service  is  due  to  a 
neighbor.  The  rabbinical  and  Buddhistic  attempts  to  do  this 
exemplify  its  impossibility.  Instead  of  establishing  the  law  in 
its  true  spirit  and  intent,  they  made  it  void  through  the  tradition 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


385 


of  their  rulings.  Therefore  in  all  questions  reaching  beyond 
explicit  principles  and  rules  of  duty1  each  person  must  determine 
for  himself  in  each  case  as  it  arises  what  is  the  specific  service 
due  to  a  particular  person  or  community  in  accordance  with 
the  spirit  and  specific  requirements  of  the  law;  and  he  must 
determine  it  by  considering  what  is,  under  existing  circumstances, 
his  own  relation  to  that  person  or  community  and  to  others 
in  the  moral  system,  —  that  is,  by  considering  what  the  case  really 
is  in  all  its  bearings.  I  shall  confine  myself  to  some  general 
suggestions  to  aid  in  determining  questions,  continually  arising 
in  actual  life,  as  to  the  right  distribution  of  duties. 

The  right  distribution  of  duties  requires  a  correct  conception 
of  the  distinction  and  relation  of  the  religious  and  the  secular  life. 
There  must  be  a  right  estimate  of  the  claims  of  daily  business 
and  other  interests  of  the  secular  life  and  of  the  service  to  man 
rendered  therein.  This  distinction  of  the  religious  and  the  sec¬ 
ular  is  often  pushed  so  far  that  the  two  are  regarded  as  separate 
and  reciprocally  exclusive  spheres  of  life.  Religion  is  cantoned 
off  as  a  little  Goshen,  where  the  light  of  Christian  love  shines, 
while  the  rest  of  life  lies  in  Egyptian  darkness.2  But  if  we  are 
to  distribute  our  service  to  men  aright  we  must  understand  that 
religion  must  renovate,  inspire,  pervade,  and  control  the  entire 
life  of  man,  —  that  the  so-called  secular  life  is  crowded  both  with 
opportunities  and  with  imperative  duties  to  render  service  to  man 
in  loving  obedience  to  God,  —  that  itself  is  to  be  consecrated  to 
God  and  elevated  into  religion.  One  special  need  of  the  present 
time  is  to  rectify  the  common  error  which  magnifies  the  separation 
between  the  religious  and  the  secular,  and  to  show  their  real 
relation  and  unity ;  to  carry  religion  down  and  out  through  all 
the  secular  life,  and  to  sanctify  and  ennoble  all  its  pursuits  as  lov¬ 
ing  service  to  man  in  manifestation  and  expression  of  love  to  God. 

1  See  Chap.  XXIII.,  Law  of  Love  and  Rules  of  Duty. 

2  I  heard  a  man  object  to  taking  the  usual  collection  at  the  close  of  the 
sacrament  of  the  Lord’s  Supper.  He  said :  “  I  do  not  like  to  hear  the  jing¬ 
ling  of  money  at  the  Lord’s  table  ;  I  hear  enough  of  that  all  the  week.” 
'Another  said:  “I  would  never  put  money  into  a  contribution  box  on  the 

Sabbath,  any  more  than  I  would  buy  a  horse.”  These  sayings  express  the 
feeling  of  many  that  the  daily  business  of  life  is  totally  separate  from  reli¬ 
gion,  that  it  is  not  only  secular  but  profane,  that  money  is  religiously  unclean, 
polluting  to  the  touch,  that  the  giving  of  money  even  for  the  advancement  of 
Christ’s  kingdom  is  not  a  religious  act. 
vol.  11.  —  25 


386  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


The  commandment  of  the  Christian  religion  is,  “  Whether  ye  eat 
or  drink,  or  whatever  ye  do,  do  all  for  the  glory  of  God  ” ;  its 
promise  is,  in  the  words  of  Jesus,  “  Whosoever  shall  give  to  drink 
unto  one  of  these  little  ones  a  cup  of  cold  water  only,  in  the  name 
of  a  disciple,  verily  I  say  unto  you,  he  shall  in  no  wise  lose  his 
reward”  ;  and  its  warning  is,  in  the  words  of  Jesus,  “  For  every 
idle  word  which  a  man  shall  speak,  he  shall  give  account  thereof 
in  the  day  of  judgment.”  This  religion  certainly  lays  claim  to  the 
whole  of  human  life  as  its  own,  requires  every  act  of  man  from 
the  least  to  the  greatest  to  be  a  loving  service  of  man,  whether  of 
self  or  of  another,  in  loving  obedience  to  God,  and  thus  lifts  the 
least  and  lowest  of  human  pursuits  and  acts  into  the  life  eternal. 
Therefore  every  sphere  of  human  life  and  action  is  a  sphere  for 
the  Christian  service  of  man  in  love  to  God,  and  the  whole  action 
of  man,  in  every  legitimate  line  of  action,  may  itself  be  such  a 
service. 

I.  Christian  Service  to  Man  in  Secular  Business.  —  A  Chris¬ 
tian  is  to  render  service  to  men  in  his  daily  business  and  work ; 
he  is  to  do  all  his  industrial  business  and  work  in  love  to  his 
neighbor  as  himself  and  in  faith  in  God  and  in  obedience  to  him. 

i.  This  is  evident,  because  the  greater  part  of  his  life  must  be 
occupied  with  his  daily  business.  Therefore,  if  his  daily  business 
gives  no  scope  for  Christian  service  of  man,  the  greater  part  of 
his  action  in  life  is  exempted  from  the  law  of  love  to  man.  It  is 
often  thought  that  the  daily  business  is  merely  secular  or  worldly ; 
that,  so  far  as  business  is  concerned,  a  person  serves  men  only  in 
that  portion  of  his  income  which  he  gives  to  the  needy  or  to 
beneficent  institutions  or  associations.  But  this  would  imply  that 
he  serves  men  only  in  giving  a  small  fraction  of  his  income,  while 
the  bulk  of  his  earnings  and  all  his  work  in  his  daily  business 
are  expended  in  serving  himself,  and  therefore  are  mere  worldli¬ 
ness.  It  is  also  a  common  impression  that  one  is  rendering 
Christian  service  to  man  only  in  distinctively  religious  acts,  as  in 
efforts  to  promote  some  distinctively  religious  enterprise  or  moral 
reform,  or  to  persuade  persons  to  become  disciples  of  Christ. 
But  this  would  imply  that  man  never  begins  to  do  good  to  men 
till  after  his  day’s  work  is  done,  and  that  all  he  does  in  the  ser¬ 
vice  of  man  is  done  occasionally,  and  in  his  hours  of  leisure.  But 
for  the  immense  majority  of  mankind,  it  is  an  absolute  necessity 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


387 


to  be  occupied  much  the  greater  part  of  the  time  in  daily  business 
or  work  of  some  kind,  and  on  it  the  greater  part  of  every  one’s 
thought,  interest,  and  energy  must  be  concentrated.  This  is 
necessary  for  the  support  of  the  person  himself  and  of  those 
dependent  on  him,  as  well  as  for  preserving  civilization  and  pro¬ 
moting  the  welfare  of  society.  His  daily  business  is  his  life-work, 
and  in  it,  when  his  life  ends,  by  far  the  greater  part  of  all  which 
he  had  achieved  in  life  will  have  been  done.  This  inevitable 
necessity  must  be  taken  into  account  in  determining  in  any  given 
case  what  service  is  due  to  an  individual.  For  the  claims  of 
business  must  be  continually  taking  precedence  of  benevolent 
service  to  be  rendered  outside  the  business.  And  if  the  business 
itself  is  not  a  sphere  for  Christian  service  to  man,  then  the  greater 
part  of  the  Christian’s  thought,  time,  and  energy  must  be  ex¬ 
pended  and  his  principal  life-work  done  outside  his  religion  and 
his  service  to  man  ;  and  his  religion  and  his  service  of  man  must 
be  outside  what  most  occupies  his  time,  interest,  and  energy,  and 
is  his  principal  life-work.  This  is  a  reduction  to  absurdity  of  the 
proposition  that  business  cannot  be  in  itself  a  Christian  service 
of  man. 

2.  The  daily  business,  if  it  is  a  legitimate  business  rightly  con¬ 
ducted,  is  itself,  in  its  actual  prosecution,  a  service  in  supplying 
the  wants  of  man,  which  may  be  rendered  in  love  to  man  and  be 
as  genuine  and  acceptable  an  expression  of  love  to  God  as  prayer, 
or  the  preaching  of  the  gospel,  or  gratuitous  help  to  the  needy. 

This  is  evident  from  the  nature  of  business  and  its  actual 
observed  effects.  It  rests  on  the  basis  of  supply  and  demand. 
There  is  no  demand  for  things  which  satisfy  no  wants ;  when  there 
are  no  wants  to  create  a  demand,  there  can  be  no  business.  All 
business  is  in  its  essence  planning  and  working  to  supply  human 
wants ;  it  is  doing  for  others  what  they  cannot  as  well  do  for 
themselves.  In  this  sense  all  business  is  a  service  rendered  by 
man  to  man. 

If  we  now  look  at  business  in  all  its  various  lines,  we  see  that 
all  business  does  supply  human  wants,  and  is  thus  a  service  to 
men,  whether  those  who  are  engaged  in  it  do  or  do  not  intend 
it  to  be  so.  All  men  in  all  countries  are  serving  one  another. 
They  are  rendering  indispensable  service  to  man,  who  supply  his 
physical  needs ;  who  get  the  raw  material  from  the  field,  the 
forest,  the  mine,  the  quarry,  and  the  waters ;  who  manufacture 


388  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


it  into  forms  fitted  for  human  use ;  who  transport  it  by  land  or 
water ;  who  make  it  accessible  in  the  market  to  those  who  buy ; 
who  invent  and  construct,  or  run,  the  machinery  by  which  man  is 
able  to  employ  the  mightiest  forces  of  nature  to  do  his  work. 
This  division  of  labor  and  perpetual  interchange  of  service  are 
indispensable  to  provide  for  man  what  are  significantly  called  the 
necessaries  of  life  ;  they  sustain  the  lives  of  men,  and  they  are  also 
essential  to  perpetuate  and  advance  civilization. 

They  also  who  do  not  own  and  sell  the  products  of  their  labor 
but  sell  their  labor  itself,  working  for  wages  or  salary,  are  render¬ 
ing  service  to  man.  Primarily  these  render  service  to  their  em¬ 
ployer  ;  but  because  their  service  is  indispensable  they  render 
also  a  service  to  man  in  the  product  itself,  proportional  to  what 
their  labor  contributed  to  its  production. 

The  government  of  a  nation  gives  employment  to  a  great 
number  of  persons.  The  business  of  government  is  to  enact  just 
laws,  to  adjudicate  all  cases  under  them  justly,  to  execute  and 
enforce  them  impartially  and  effectively,  to  maintain  the  integrity 
and  authority  of  the  government  and  the  order  of  society,  to  pro¬ 
tect  the  rights  of  the  people  and  thus  to  promote  the  public  good 
and  the  general  welfare.  Government  exists  for  the  good  of  the 
governed.  Here  is  a  line  of  business  of  the  nature  of  adminis¬ 
tering  a  trust  for  the  good  of  the  people.  “  Public  office  is  a 
public  trust.”  Plainly  the  business  of  every  government  official 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  is  to  do  the  duties  of  his  office 
faithfully  in  the  service  of  the  people.  In  this  sense  rulers  are 
properly  called  servants  of  the  people.  They  do  not  cease  to 
rule  in  fidelity  to  the  constitution  and  laws ;  but  they  are  ser¬ 
vants  as  using  their  high  prerogatives,  not  for  personal  emolu¬ 
ment  or  aggrandizement,  but  to  confer  benefits  on  the  people,  — 
servants  in  the  exalted  significance  in  which  Christ  declared  him¬ 
self  to  be  a  servant,  when  he  came  to  bring  salvation  to  men. 
In  the  legal  profession  the  business  is  to  interpret  the  law,  and 
thus  to  assist  clients  in  the  legal  management  of  their  property 
and  business,  and  in  their  cases  in  court  to  give  them  the  pro¬ 
tection  and  help  to  which  the  law  entitles.  In  the  medical 
profession  the  business  of  the  doctor  is  a  direct  service  of  his 
patients,  and  teaching  people  to  remove  or  avoid  the  causes  of 
disease.  In  every  line  of  legitimate  business  the  persons  en¬ 
gaged  in  it  are  servants  of  the  people. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


389 


There  are  also  lines  of  business  which  some  may  choose  as 
their  life-work  in  which  the  work  aims  directly  to  develop  and 
improve  men  themselves  physically,  intellectually,  morally,  and 
spiritually.  Such  is  the  business  of  educators  in  the  school 
and  through  the  press,  of  ministers  of  religion,  and  of  those  who 
devote  their  lives  to  the  advocacy  of  some  particular  reform. 
Here  also  we  may  class  the  great  geniuses  who  have  done  great 
work  and  sometimes  have  marked,  if  they  have  not  created, 
epochs  in  human  progress.  Such  are  the  great  discoverers  and 
inventors,  the  philosophical  thinkers,  the  great  statesmen,  the 
great  authors  and  artists,  the  great  Christian  theologians  and 
preachers,  the  leaders  of  great  social,  political,  and  religious 
reformations. 

Thus  the  survey  of  business  in  all  lines  shows  that  it  consists 
in  supplying  human  wants ;  and  that  every  sphere  of  legitimate 
business  gives  scope  in  its  prosecution  for  the  service  of  man  in 
the  exercise  of  Christian  love.  There  is,  however,  one  neces¬ 
sary  qualification  of  this  conclusion.  The  business  of  those  who 
devote  their  lives  to  direct  efforts  to  promote  the  intellectual, 
moral,  and  spiritual  improvement  of  men  is  not  always  the  supply 
of  a  want  which  is  felt  and  of  a  demand  which  is  made  by  those 
to  whom  the  service  is  rendered.  It  is  the  supply  of  a  real  need, 
but  not  always  of  a  consciously  felt  want.  The  object  of  the 
worker  is  to  awaken  the  higher  powers  and  susceptibilities  of 
men,  to  show  them  the  higher  possibilities  of  their  being,  and 
thus  to  make  them  conscious  of  their  need.  It  is  the  beneficent 
worker  himself  who  by  awakening  and  developing  the  man, 
arouses  in  him  the  demand  for  knowledge,  or  virtue,  or  union 
with  God. 

3.  There  is  a  further  significance  in  the  service  which  busi¬ 
ness  may  render  to  man.  All  business  renders  a  service  which 
reaches  beyond  the  individual  directly  served,  and  becomes  in 
a  true  sense  a  service  to  mankind.  This  is  conspicuously  exem¬ 
plified  in  the  service  rendered  by  great  and  beneficent  geniuses. 
In  this  the  service  to  particular  individuals  is  scarcely  noticed  in 
the  wider  service  of  mankind.  Great  scientific  discoveries  like 
those  of  Copernicus  and  Newton,  great  inventions  like  the  mari¬ 
ner’s  compass,  gunpowder,  the  art  of  printing,  the  steam  engine, 
and  the  electric  telegraph,  a  great  reformation  like  that  of  Luther 
and  the  abolition  of  slavery  by  the  Christian  nations,  the  discov- 


390  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


ery  of  America  by  Columbus,  render  service  which  transcends  all 
influence  on  individuals,  and  becomes  the  possession  of  mankind. 
The  benefit  of  such  epoch-making  achievements  is  indeed  ulti¬ 
mately  distributed  to  individuals ;  otherwise  they  could  not  bene¬ 
fit  society  and  promote  its  progress.  And  even  great  works  of 
genius  at  the  outset  require  a  transaction  of  business,  an  inter¬ 
change  of  services  between  individuals  as  direct  as  any  inter¬ 
change  of  products  or  of  labor  for  wages.  Milton  sold  the 
copyright  of  “  Paradise  Lost”  for  ten  pounds;  Homer’s  poetry 
was  probably  recited  by  minstrels  for  pay ;  an  inventor  takes  a 
patent  on  his  invention  ;  pictures  which  money  cannot  buy  may 
have  been  painted  originally  for  a  comparatively  small  sum ; 
Columbus  went  from  country  to  country  seeking  funds  for  the 
outfit  of  his  voyage.  But  these  relations  of  such  works  to  indi¬ 
viduals  are  lost  from  sight  in  comparison  with  the  service  they 
have  rendered  to  mankind. 

It  is  not,  however,  the  great  geniuses  alone  who  thus  render 
service  to  mankind  transcending  that  rendered  directly  to  an 
individual  in  a  transaction  of  business.  All  kinds  of  business  in 
the  very  prosecution  of  them  as  business  exert  this  wider  influ¬ 
ence.  Whatever  adds  directly  or  indirectly  to  the  general  com¬ 
fort  of  mankind,  increases  the  power  and  resources  of  man, 
purifies  civilization,  sweetens  and  ennobles  life,  is  a  service  to 
humanity.  As  Swift’s  king  of  Brobdingnag  says,  “  Whoever 
makes  two  blades  of  grass  grow  where  only  one  grew  before  is 
a  benefactor  of  mankind.” 

This  broader  service  to  mankind  is  rendered  in  the  production 
and  exchange  of  physical  products.  The  persons  whose  wants 
are  ultimately  supplied  by  the  product  may  be  the  antipodes  of 
the  producer.  When  we  take  our  meals,  or  clothe  ourselves,  or 
furnish  our  houses,  we  are  indebted  for  what  we  use  to  the  ser¬ 
vice  of  many  persons  in  many  lands.  And  thus  the  whole  pro¬ 
cess  of  production  and  exchange  is  a  service  to  mankind.  Every 
one  has  at  his  door  the  products  of  all  the  world.  And  to  this 
service  of  mankind  every  workman  has  contributed  who  has 
assisted  at  any  stage  in  the  production  of  the  raw  material,  the 
manufacture,  transportation,  or  exchange.  And  every  one  who 
renders  personal  service  to  another  contributes  to  the  benefit  of 
mankind  so  far  as  the  person  served,  by  the  service  thus  rendered 
to  him,  is  able  more  continuously  and  effectively  to  use  his  own 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


391 


peculiar  powers  in  his  own  line  of  business.  Manual  laborers, 
skilled  or  unskilled,  exceedingly  over-estimate  their  service  when 
they  claim  to  be  the  only  real  producers  of  wealth.  The  capi¬ 
talist,  who  provides  the  raw  material,  the  place,  and  machinery 
for  preparing  it,  the  ships  and  railroads  which  transport  the  pro¬ 
ducts,  and  the  ability  to  plan  and  manage  the  complicated  busi¬ 
ness,  produces  far  the  larger  part  of  the  product,  and  renders  the 
larger  part  of  the  service  to  man.  But  the  real  service  to  man¬ 
kind  of  the  workmen  in  the  various  stages  of  the  production  and 
exchange  must  be  distinctly  and  fully  appreciated.  By  a  similar 
line  of  thought  it  may  be  shown  that  in  every  line  of  business 
the  service  reaches  beyond  the  individuals  immediately  concerned 
and  becomes  a  service  to  mankind. 

4.  It  must  be  considered  also,  that  the  service  rendered  in 
business  not  only  reaches  beyond  the  individual  to  mankind, 
but  also  beyond  its  immediate  products,  and  contributes  to  the 
progress  and  higher  good  of  man.  The  products  of  man’s  work 
in  various  lines  may  be  distinguished  as  perishable  and  imperish¬ 
able.  The  products  which  supply  physical  wants  are  consumed, 
some  immediately,  others  in  the  lapse  of  months  or  years.  In 
the  language  of  Scripture,  “They  perish  with  the  using.”  But 
whatever  is  accomplished  in  the  development  and  improvement 
of  man,  in  purifying,  renovating,  and  ennobling  human  life  is 
imperishable.  It  is  often  thought  that  the  development  and 
improvement  of  men  and  their  progress  in  the  spiritual  life 
are  effected  solely  by  the  efforts  of  those  who  are  working  imme¬ 
diately  for  these  ends.  But  in  fact  all  legitimate  business  contri¬ 
butes  directly  or  indirectly  to  these  higher  ends.  The  various 
lines  of  business,  the  products  of  which  are  consumed  in  supply¬ 
ing  physical  wants,  may  seem  to  contribute  nothing  to  the  im¬ 
perishable  results  effected  in  the  renovation,  development,  and 
culture  of  man  and  to  be  therefore  of  inferior  dignity  and 
worth.  Yet  from  another  point  of  view  this  creation  of  products 
for  consumption  is  a  service  of  fundamental  importance  with¬ 
out  which  the  higher  results  of  human  renovation,  culture,  and 
progress  would  be  impossible.  Man  must  have  the  necessaries 
of  life.  Without  the  service  which  produces  what  is  to  be 
consumed  man  would  cease  to  exist ;  there  would  be  no  men 
to  be  educated  and  developed  and  no  human  society  to  make 
progress.  And  as  the  savage  advances  to  civilization,  his  wants 


392  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


are  multiplied  because  in  his  progressive  development  he  be¬ 
comes  aware  that  he  is  many-sided,  he  touches  his  environment 
at  new  points,  he  becomes  susceptible  of  new  and  higher  en¬ 
joyments.  The  civilized  man  is  as  much  greater  and  more 
complicated  than  the  savage  as  his  house  with  all  its  complicated 
apartments,  conveniences  and  elegancies  is  greater  than  the 
savage’s  wigwam.  Without  the  business  which  supplies  products 
to  be  consumed  in  supplying  these  multiplied  and  higher  wants, 
civilized  man  would  relapse  into  barbarism.  And  these  lines 
of  business  are  also  seen  to  be  essential  to  man’s  higher  culture 
in  the  fact  that  these  physical  wants  are  the  primary  motives 
which  excited  the  primitive  man  to  the  exercise  of  skill  and 
power  to  supply  them,  and  which  through  the  ages  have  stimu¬ 
lated  the  inventive  genius  which  has  given  man  control  of  the 
resources  and  powers  of  nature.  In  the  prosecution  of  the 
necessary  work  of  life  man  has  effected  his  own  education  and 
development  and  the  progress  of  civilization. 

Thus  the  business  whose  products  are  consumed  in  supplying 
man’s  physical  wants  is  lifted  into  a  service  to  humanity  and 
shown  to  be  essentially  connected  with  all  direct  efforts  to 
promote  the  improvement  of  man  and  the  progress  of  society, 
and  an  indispensable  condition  of  their  success.  The  work 
of  men  in  all  lines  of  legitimate  business  is  necessary  to  the 
progress  of  man ;  it  is  impossible  to  limit  the  service  which 
promotes  it  to  any  one.  Men  build  better  than  they  know. 
The  service  they  render  outreaches  its  immediate  end.  Whether 
men  intend  it  or  not,  all  work  in  supplying  legitimate  human 
wants  will  have  influence  immediate  or  remote  on  the  progress 
of  civilization  and  the  development  of  man ;  it  all  has  relation 
to  the  life  eternal  and  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  gives  scope 
in  the  prosecution  of  the  business  for  love  and  service  to 
man  in  love  to  God. 

And  so  far  as  business  in  any  line  thus  contributes  to  the 
production  of  the  imperishable  products  of  human  improvement 
it  reaches  onward  into  the  future.  The  attainments  of  one 
generation  are  the  vantage-ground  where  the  next  may  begin. 
Whatever  develops  or  improves  an  individual  or  a  generation 
is  transmitted  to  others.  The  lighted  torch  is  passed  from 
hand  to  hand.  The  circle  rippling  in  the  water  widens.  No 
grain  of  sand  is  lost.  No  force  once  exerted  is  annihilated. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


393 


And  thus  the  progress  of  man  is  the  result  of  complicated 
forces  acting  from  of  old.  Man  is  ever  the  heir  of  all  pre¬ 
ceding  ages. 

The  mere  fact  that  any  business  is  a  service  to  man  does 
not  prove  that  the  person  doing  the  business  is  actuated  by 
love  to  man.  He  may  be  actuated  solely  by  a  selfish  regard 
to  his  own  interest,  or  by  interest  in  science  or  art  with  no 
thought  of  the  welfare  of  man.  But  it  demonstrates  that  the  busi¬ 
ness  gives  abundant  scope  for  Christian  service  to  man  in  love 
to  God  and  ought  to  be  prosecuted  as  such. 

5.  A  further  evidence  that  business  may  be  a  Christian  service 
of  man  is  the  fact  that  in  all  its  transactions  in  detail  Christian 
benevolence  regulated  by  righteousness  is  required,  and  thus 
there  is  scope  for  the  continual  exercise  of  all  the  Christian 
virtues. 

6.  Business,  including  all  work  for  hire,  gives  scope  for  the 
Christian  service  of  man  in  the  use  of  the  income.  I  do  not 
refer  merely  to  what  one  gives  away  for  charitable  purposes, 
which,  as  already  shown,  is  a  comparatively  small  part  of  one’s 
life-work.  The  entire  income  of  any  industrial  pursuit  is  to 
be  devoted  to  the  service  of  man.  Thus  the  use.  of  the  whole 
income  may  become  a  real  expression  of  love  to  God  with 
all  the  heart  and  to  one’s  neighbor  as  himself.  Of  course  the 
person  recognizes  the  fact  that  he  owes  a  peculiar  service  to 
himself  and  his  own  family  the  rendering  of  which  is  an  essential 
part  of  his  service  to  mankind.  The  decision  of  every  question 
as  to  how  much  of  his  income  he  shall  expend  on  himself  and 
his  own  family,  how  much  he  shall  invest,  and  how  much  he 
shall  give  for  charitable  purposes,  hinges  on  the  question,  in 
what  way  of  expending  he  will  most  completely  meet  all  his 
obligations  of  duty  and  so  most  effectively  advance  the  kingdom 
of  God  on  earth  and  thus  promote  the  well-being  of  man. 
The  expenditure  of  income  is  not  strictly  a  transaction  of  the 
daily  business  and  industry ;  but  in  the  often  monotonous  trans¬ 
actions  of  daily  business  and  industry  one  feels  himself  inspired 
and  his  business  ennobled  as  a  Christian  service,  by  the  fact 
that  its  income  is  to  be  expended  in  promoting  the  kingdom 
of  God  and  the  well-being  of  man. 

Thus  Christianity  claims  all  human  business  as  a  Christian 
service  of  man  under  the  law  of  love  ;  and  all  legitimate  busi- 


394  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


ness  gives  scope  to  such  service  in  the  business  itself,  in  all  its 
transactions  in  detail  and  in  the  use  of  its  income.1 

II.  Reciprocal  and  Gratuitous  Service.  —  In  determining 
what  service  one  owes  to  another  in  any  given  case,  an  important 
point  to  be  considered  is  their  respective  ability  to  render  ser¬ 
vice.  From  this  point  of  view  the  Christian  law  of  greatness  for 
service  is  found  to  imply  two  rules  or  laws  of  action.  The  first  is 
the  law  of  reciprocal  service  ;  when  in  any  particular  transaction 
each  party  is,  as  to  that  transaction,  equally  able  to  serve  the 
other,  each  is  required  to  render  to  the  other  a  service  equivalent 
to  that  which  he  receives.  The  other  is  the  law  of  gratuitous  ser¬ 
vice  ;  when  one  is  in  need  of  service  which  he  cannot  requite, 
the  strong  must  serve  the  weak  so  far  as  he  has  ability  and  op¬ 
portunity  to  do  so  in  good-will  and  righteousness  to  all. 

i.  T  he  former  of  these  two  is  the  law  in  all  transactions  of 
business.  Business  consists  in  the  exchange  of  labor  or  com¬ 
modity  for  labor  or  commodity,  or  for  money  which  represents 
all  values  ;  or,  as  some  writers  on  political  economy  properly  ex¬ 
press  it,  in  the  exchange  of  services.  And  the  law  of  all  legiti¬ 
mate  business  is  that  in  every  transaction  the  service  rendered 
shall  be  of  equal  value  with  the  service  received  ;  the  transaction 
shall  be  an  exchange  of  equivalent  services ;  each  party  shall  be 
equally  benefited. 

In  this  way  business  is  to  be  done  in  benevolence  regulated  by 
righteousness.  It  is  commonly  admitted  that  in  transacting  busi¬ 
ness  a  person  should  be  always  truthful,  just,  honest,  and  honor¬ 
able  ;  that  is,  that  his  action  should  be  regulated  by  righteousness. 
But  it  is  a  common  impression  that  in  business  there  is  no  place 

1  There  is  a  widely  spread  impression  that  a  person  of  great  genius  is 
thereby  exempted  from  strict  compliance  with  the  Christian  law.  Thus  it 
was  said  of  Madame  Dudevant  (George  Sand),  “  Genius  in  all  time  has 
seemed  to  assume  the  right  to  be  a  law  unto  itself,  and  we  have  in  this  case 
another  instance  of  the  difficulty  of  holding  exceptionally  gifted  natures  to 
the  conventionalities  that  are  the  welcome  safeguard  to  less  daring  souls.” 
But  the  Seventh  Commandment  is  not  a  mere  “conventionality;”  it  is  the 
law  of  God.  This  same  writer  says  of  this  gifted  woman,  that  her  “  history 
had  passages  wicked  beyond  comment  or  excuse.”  And  her  novels,  espe¬ 
cially  the  earlier  ones,  were  corrupting  and  debasing.  But  in  fact  a  person, 
by  virtue  of  superior  genius,  is  the  more  under  obligation  to  use  his  or  her 
great  powers  in  the  service  of  man  in  benevolence  regulated  in  its  exercise 
by  righteousness.  Superior  greatness  is  under  obligation  to  render  superior 
service. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


395 


for  benevolence.  Business  is  business,  it  is  said ;  what  I  do  in 
benevolence  must  be  outside  my  business.  This  assumes  that 
benevolence  is  exercised  only  in  what  we  give  away.  It  is  true 
that  the  law  of  gratuitous  service  is  not  a  law  of  the  transactions 
of  business.  These  transactions  consist  in  the  exchange  of  equiv¬ 
alent  services  under  the  law  of  reciprocity.  Giving  property 
away  is  not  the  transaction  of  business.  But  it  does  not  follow 
that  benevolence  is  excluded  from  business.  In  giving  an  equiv¬ 
alent  for  what  I  receive  I  may  do  it  in  good-will  to  the  person 
with  whom  I  am  dealing,  in  the  desire  that  it  may  be  to  him  a 
service  fully  equivalent  to  that  which  he  has  rendered  to  me. 
Justice  requires  that  I  render  to  him  a  full  equivalent  for  what  I 
receive.  But  justice  is  not  exclusive  of  benevolence,  but  is  always 
to  be  exercised  in  benevolence.  Benevolence  is  the  atmosphere 
in  which  true  justice  must  live  and  breathe.  Accordingly,  in  every 
transaction  in  business  each  party  is  bound  to  be  as  careful  to  see 
that  he  renders  an  equivalent  for  what  he  receives,  as  he  is  to  see 
that  he  receives  an  equivalent  for  what  he  gives.  The  employer 
must  serve  the  workman  as  really  as  the  workman  must  serve  the 
employer.  This  excludes  from  all  business  the  maxim  Caveat 
e7nptor,  let  the  other  party  look  out  for  himself,  —  a  maxim  which 
implies  that  in  any  transaction  each  party  shall  look  out  only  for 
his  own  interest  with  no  concern  for  the  interest  of  the  other. 
The  maxim  is  unchristian  and  immoral.  The  only  legitimate 
bargain  under  the  Christian  law  of  love  is  one  in  which  equivalent 
services  are  exchanged,  in  which  each  party  is  equally  benefited 
and  takes  care  and  pains  to  have  it  so.  Any  transaction,  in 
which  one  intentionally  takes  from  another  property  or  service 
for  which  he  does  not  render  an  equivalent,  is  fraudulent.  It  must 
be  classed  with  cheating,  stealing,  swindling,  and  robbing ;  for 
what  are  these  but  taking  a  person’s  property  without  rendering 
an  equivalent? 

2.  The  law  of  gratuitous  service  is,  when  the  parties  are  not 
able  to  render  equivalent  services,  the  strong  must  serve  the  weak 
in  good-will  regulated  by  righteousness.  This  is  a  general  prin¬ 
ciple,  not  a  specific  rule.  What  service  is  to  be  rendered  in  such 
a  case  must  be  determined  by  each  one  for  himself  in  view  of  his 
own  ability  and  of  his  relations  and  obligations  to  others  in  the 
moral  system,  and  of  the  best  and  most  effective  ways  of  helping 
the  needy. 


396  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


III.  Practical  Importance  of  the  Christian  Conception 
of  Business.  —  This  Christian  conception  of  business  as  service 
to  man  in  loving  trust  in  God  and  obedience  to  him  is  of  far- 
reaching  practical  importance. 

i.  The  Christian  conception  of  business  gives  the  criteria  by 
which  to  distinguish  legitimate  business  from  illegitimate,  and  so 
to  guide  in  choosing  a  business  as  the  work  of  life.  Paul  speaks 
of  the  business  of  a  Christian  as  a  calling  of  God  (i  Cor.  vii.  20). 
Hence  it  is  familiarly  spoken  of  in  Christian  countries  as  the  man’s 
calling.  And  as  the  line  of  a  man’s  life-work  in  the  service  of 
God  and  man  it  is  properly  so  designated,  and  should  be  chosen 
as  such  seeking  the  guidance  of  God. 

The  first  criterion  of  a  legitimate  business  is,  that  in  its  prosecu¬ 
tion  and  its  products  it  is  a  beneficent  service  to  man.  Dram¬ 
selling,  brothel-keeping,  counterfeiting,  the  adulteration  of  food, 
medicine  and  other  products  are  illegitimate  lines  of  business, 
because  in  their  prosecution  and  products  they  are  injurious  to 
individuals  and  to  society. 

A  second  criterion  is  that  in  the  detailed  transactions  of  the 
business  it  shall  be  possible  for  each  party  to  receive  a  full  equiv¬ 
alent  for  what  he  gives.  By  this  criterion  the  making  and  hold¬ 
ing  of  slaves,  gambling,  betting,  lotteries,  and  all  transactions 
designed  to  extort  something  for  nothing,  are  excluded  from 
legitimate  business.  Speculation  which  creates  a  corner  in  wheat 
or  purposely  and  artificially  raises  the  price  of  a  commodity  is  an 
illegitimate  business  which  the  Christian  law  of  love  forbids,  be¬ 
cause  it  creates  no  value ;  it  only  compels  the  transfer  of  value 
from  others  to  one’s  self  without  returning  an  equivalent.  And 
what  does  the  highwayman  more?  The  difference  is  only  of 
method.  The  latter  compels  the  transfer  by  force  on  the  peril 
of  life ;  the  former  equally  compels  the  transfer,  though  by  in¬ 
direction,  and  equally  it  may  be  on  the  peril  of  life ;  for,  at 
whatever  price,  a  person  must  have  the  necessaries  of  life  or  die. 
And  so  the  scriptures  pronounce  the  condemnation  :  “  He  who 
withholdeth  corn,  the  people  shall  curse  him  ”  1  (Prov.  xi.  26). 

Here  the  objection  may  be  made  that  all  business  satisfies 
human  wants,  and  that  therefore  all  business  is  equally  legitimate. 

1  Of  course  by  these  two  criteria  all  living  by  stealing,  robbery,  and  other 
criminal  acts  is  excluded,  and  all  dishonesty  and  fraud  in  any  business 
which  is  in  itself  legitimate. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


397 


But  from  ignorance  or  vice  men  have  perverted  desires,  the 
satisfaction  of  which  is  a  detriment  both  to  the  person  himself 
and  to  society.  Therefore  the  two  parties  in  a  transaction  may 
each  be  satisfied  that  he  has  received  an  equivalent  for  what  he 
gave  ;  and  yet  in  reality  one  has  received  evil  and  not  good.  All 
business  which  consists  in  satisfying  such  perverted  desires  is 
illegitimate  ;  it  is  contrary  to  Christianity  and  good  morals.  It  is 
like  giving  a  child  a  scorpion  because  he  cries  for  it.  The  only 
effective  way  to  suppress  business  of  this  kind  is  so  to  educate 
and  develop  the  people  that  they  will  not  allow  themselves  to 
become  victims  of  such  evil  desires  and  habits.  With  the  cessa¬ 
tion  of  these  wants  all  demand  for  the  supply  of  them  would 
cease.  Here,  as  always,  the  progress  of  society  is  possible  pri¬ 
marily  only  by  the  improvement  of  the  people,  to  which  regula¬ 
tion,  restriction,  or  prohibition  by  the  civil  law  must  always  be 
secondary. 

These  criteria  must  be  recognized  in  selecting  one’s  line  of 
business.  The  distribution  of  duties  to  men  must  be  determined 
in  part  by  the  fact  that  one’s  service  must  be  rendered  in  some 
specific  business.  This  is  rendered  necessary  by  the  division  of 
labor  essential  in  civilized  life.  Hence  the  right  choice  of  a  pro¬ 
fession  or  business  is  of  supreme  importance.  It  is  to  be  the 
person’s  life-work,  in  the  prosecution  of  which  far  the  greater  part 
of  all  which  he  accomplishes  through  his  whole  life  in  the  service 
of  God  and  man  will  be  done.  As  such  he  must  choose  it  con¬ 
scientiously  and  consecrate  himself  to  the  service  of  God  and 
man  in  it.  He  must  choose  only  among  lines  of  business  which 
have  the  distinctive  criteria  of  legitimate  business.  Among 
these,  few  may  be  accessible  and  the  range  of  choice  is  com¬ 
monly  very  limited.  But  in  selecting  among  those  which  are 
accessible  to  him  he  should  select  the  one  best  suited  to  his  own 
peculiar  powers,  and  in  which  therefore  he  can  achieve  the  great¬ 
est  and  best  results  in  the  service  of  man. 

2.  The  realization  of  this  Christian  conception  of  business 
would  broaden  the  conception  of  the  Christian  life  by  correct¬ 
ing  a  common  tendency  to  misapprehend  the  distinction  of  the 
religious  and  the  secular  and  to  set  the  one  apart  from  the  other. 
It  would  make  religion  pervade  human  life  like  the  atmosphere 
pressing  on  every  surface  and  penetrating  every  opening ;  or  like 
electricity  acting  unseen  in  every  living  organism ;  or  like  the 


398  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


sunshine,  with  its  light  and  heat.  Many  Christians  become  dis¬ 
couraged  and  think  they  are  leading  useless  lives,  because,  pressed 
with  the  necessary  work  of  every  day,  they  have  time  and  strength 
to  do  but  little  in  the  way  of  direct  efforts  to  lead  men  to  Christ 
or  to  work  in  charitable  enterprises.  But  they  may  be  relieved 
from  discouragement  when  they  consecrate  their  daily  business 
itself  to  God  and  do  it  as  their  Christian  work  in  the  service  of 
man,  continually  in  contact  with  human  needs  and  working  to 
supply  them.  Thus  they  would  become  healthier  and  more 
whole-hearted  Christians,  for  their  religion  would  be  no  longer 
crowded  into  a  corner  or  a  closet,  but  would  spread  like  sunshine 
over  the  whole  activity  of  life,  enlightening,  warming,  and  quick¬ 
ening  it,  making  it  all  aglow  with  a  divine  glory. 

3.  The  importance  of  realizing  in  actual  practical  life  the 
Christian  conception  of  business  as  a  loving  service  to  man  in 
obedience  to  and  trust  in  God  is  further  evident  in  the  type  of 
character  and  civilization  developed  by  it  in  contrast  with  that 
developed  by  doing  business  only  for  selfish  gain. 

Let  it  be  said  in  the  outset  that  the  business  of  the  world  rests 
on  the  trust  of  man  in  man,  and  is  a  vast  exemplification  of 
fidelity,  honesty,  and  honor  in  response  to  the  trust  reposed  in 
men.  The  fact  that  this  trust  or  confidence  continues  from  year 
to  year  and  from  generation  to  generation  is  proof  that  fidelity, 
honesty,  and  honor  in  business  are  the  rule,  not  the  exception. 
If  this  confidence  of  man  in  man  should  cease,  the  transaction  of 
business  on  any  large  scale  would  be  impossible.  If  we  trace  a 
single  product,  as  a  chest  of  tea,  from  the  hand  of  the  planter  to 
the  table  of  the  consumer  in  the  centre  of  this  continent,  we  see 
a  process  of  successive  trusts  to  a  great  number  of  persons,  who? 
with  a  few  exceptions  are  unknown  to  one  another,  as  well  as  to 
the  person  who,  at  any  particular  time  in  this  process,  is  the 
owner  of  the  tea.  In  collecting  and  paying  what  is  due  in  mer¬ 
cantile  transactions,  immense  sums  in  drafts,  bank  cheques,  and 
bills  of  exchange  are  continually  in  transition  from  one  city  to 
another  over  all  the  world.  Yet  they  are  paid  as  they  become 
due  ;  the  exceptions  compared  with  the  amount  of  the  exchanges 
are  few  and  small.  And  this  fidelity,  honesty,  and  honor  in  trans¬ 
actions  of  business  ramified  over  all  the  world,  justify  and  per¬ 
petuate  the  confidence  of  man  in  man  which  is  the  basis  for  the 
possibility  of  business,  and  are  worthy  of  admiration.  This  does 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


399 


not  mean  that  the  business  is  done  in  Christian  love  to  men. 
The  leading  motive  may  be  a  regard  to  the  person’s  own  interest. 
For  if  he  fails  to  honor  the  drafts  on  him  for  payment  of  what  he 
owes,  his  business  is  ruined.  But,  even  if  so,  the  fact  that  the 
business  of  the  world  cannot  be  carried  on  without  prevailing 
fidelity,  honesty,  and  honor,  is  one  of  the  many  evidences  that 
the  law  of  love  is  inherent  in  the  constitution  of  the  moral  system 
and  that  a  prevailing  fidelity,  honesty,  and  honor  are  essential  to 
civilization  and  to  the  well-being  and  even  the  existence  of 
society,  and  that  one  must  conform  his  action  to  the  law  of 
righteousness  and  good-will  in  order  to  secure  his  own  interest. 
And  as  the  nations  are  more  and  more  becoming  neighbors  and 
are  more  and  more  bound  together  in  common  interests,  we  see 
in  the  business  of  the  world  both  scope  for  the  exercise  of  uni¬ 
versal  Christian  love  and  its  necessity  to  the  most  healthful  and 
successful  prosecution  of  the  world’s  business  and  to  the  welfare 
of  mankind. 

But  the  frequency  of  unfaithfulness  to  trusts,  of  swindling,  and 
of  concerted  arrangements  to  get  possession  of  the  property  of 
others  without  paying  an  equivalent  prove  that  much  remains  to 
be  accomplished  in  order  that  all  business  may  be  done,  not 
selfishly  for  personal  gain,  but  as  a  Christian  service  to  man. 
And  the  fact  that  some  who  do  these  dishonest  and  dishonorable 
deeds  have  been  members  of  the  Christian  church  exemplifies  the 
false  conception  of  the  separation  of  religion  from  the  secular  life 
and  emphasizes  the  fact  that  the  daily  business,  as  occupying  the 
most  of  one’s  time  and  energy,  is  the  principal  sphere  for  the 
exercise  of  religion,  for  the  manifestation  of  Christian  character, 
and  for  rendering  Christian  service  to  man. 

I  proceed  to  consider  in  contrast  the  type  of  character  and  of 
civilization  indicated  and  developed  by  selecting  and  prosecuting 
business  selfishly  for  personal  gain  and  that  indicated  and  devel¬ 
oped  by  selecting  and  prosecuting  it  as  a  Christian  service  to 
man. 

“  If  industry  in  business  is  regarded  selfishly  as  the  means  of 
personal  gain  it  will  be  prosecuted  as  a  drudgery  and  shirked 
when  practicable.  Success  will  be  the  acquisition  of  property 
with  the  privilege  of  exemption  from  work.  Idleness  will  be 
coveted  and  a  life  of  luxurious  indolence  will  be  envied  as  the 
highest  condition  of  man.  But  if  work  is  regarded  as  useful 


400  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


service  every  right-minded  person  will  desire  opportunity  to  work. 
No  one  is  rightly  educated  till  he  learns  not  to  shrink  from  work 
as  a  drudgery  but  gladly  to  accept  it  as  an  opportunity  for  render¬ 
ing  service. 

“  If  business  is  regarded  as  useful  service,  the  aim  of  the  work¬ 
man  will  be  to  do  all  work  thoroughly,  as  for  God.  The  mechanic 
will  congratulate  himself,  not  merely  that  he  has  received  a  sum 
of  money,  but  that  his  work  is  well  done  and  will  render  good 
service.  The  manufacturer  will  congratulate  himself,  not  merely 
that  he  has  made  money  on  a  contract,  but  also  that  he  has  given 
employment  to  many  persons  and  paid  them  the  full  worth  of 
their  work,  and  that  he  has  turned  out  goods  well  made,  all  that 
he  contracted  they  should  be,  that  will  do  good  service  wherever 
used.  The  merchant  will  congratulate  himself,  not  merely  that 
he  has  made  large  and  profitable  sales,  but  that  he  has  given  his 
customers  a  full  equivalent  for  their  money,  taking  no  advantage 
of  any  one’s  ignorance,  carelessness  or  necessity.  Thus  work  in 
every  department  develops  a  noble  and  generous  character  of 
inflexible  integrity  and  intent  on  the  welfare  of  men. 

“  But  if  work  is  done  only  for  gain,  it  manifests  and  develops 
the  contrary  character.  The  only  joy  in  work  done  is  for  the 
gain  acquired.  The  day-laborer  works  unfaithfully  and  with  pur¬ 
posed  slowness.  The  mechanic  does  his  work  imperfectly.  The 
manufacturer  grinds  his  workmen  to  the  lowest  wages  and  turns 
out  articles  adulterated  or  otherwise  of  inferior  quality.  The 
man  no  longer  regards  his  employer,  his  workman,  or  his  customer 
as  a  fellow- man  to  be  served  under  the  law  of  reciprocity,  but 
as  a  victim  to  be  plundered,  a  goose  to  be  plucked ;  and  he 
plucks  him  as  near  as  he  dares  to  the  very  life.  Then  he  boasts 
how  much  he  has  made  out  of  him,  and  prides  himself  on  the 
sharpness  with  which  he  has  taken  another’s  property  without 
rendering  an  equivalent.  Work  thus  prosecuted  strengthens  the 
greed  of  gain.  The  man  becomes  rapacious.  He  receives,  but 
makes  no  return.  His  life  is  a  Sahara,  sucking  the  blessed  sun¬ 
shine  into  its  burning  barrenness  and  returning  no  green  thing. 
He  becomes  unscrupulous,  reckless  of  justice  and  honor.  As  Dr. 
South  says,  he  retails  heaven  and  salvation  for  pence  and  half¬ 
pence,  and  seldom  sells  a  commodity  but  he  sells  his  soul  with 
it,  like  brown  paper,  into  the  bargain.  He  becomes  mean  in 
getting  and  niggardly  in  spending.  He  becomes  hard,  reckless  of 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


401 


the  rights  and  interests  of  others,  incapable  of  compassion,  dili¬ 
gent  and  energetic  in  his  business  as  an  iron  steam-engine  at 
work,  and  as  hard  and  heartless  as  it.  He  lives  not  to  benefit 
society,  but  to  prey  upon  it,  —  a  pirate  seizing  prizes,  a  devil 
seeking  whom  he  may  devour.”  1  And  the  civilization  developed 
will  be  characterized  by  rapacity  for  gain,  recklessness  of  the 
rights  of  others,  venality,  and  gilded  corruption. 

4.  Because  legitimate  business  rightly  conducted  is  a  service 
rendered  to  man  in  obedience  to  God’s  law  of  universal  love, 
political  economy  must  have  its  basis  in  ethics,  and  the  laws  of 
business  in  their  deepest  significance  must  be  moral  laws.  Every 
attempt,  in  accordance  with  long-established  usage,  to  develop  the 
science  of  political  economy  from  the  principle  of  self-interest 
alone  must  fail  to  give  any  true  solution  of  the  problems  involved. 
For  it  practically  exempts  business,  the  greater  part  of  every  one’s 
life-work,  from  the  law  of  love  and  consigns  it  to  sheer  selfishness, 
restrained  only  by  the  civil  law.  A  true  science  of  political  econ¬ 
omy  can  no  more  be  developed  from  this  self-centred  point  of 
view  than  a  true  astronomy  from  the  supposition  that  the  earth  is 
the  centre  around  which  the  sun  and  all  the  stars  daily  revolve. 

A  fundamental  problem  of  ethics  is  to  find  the  harmony  of  the 
service  one  owes  to  himself  with  the  service  he  owes  to  others. 
Egoism  and  altruism,  if  jipart  from  each  other,  are  in  irreconcil¬ 
able  antagonism.  Egoism  would  be  supreme  love  of  self  with  no 
regard  for  another  except  to  use  him  in  the  service  of  self.  Altru¬ 
ism  would  imply  that  the  whole  action  of  life  must  be  the  service 
of  others  with  no  regard  to  the  interest  or  well-being  of  one’s  self. 
It  would  require  one  to  deny  the  distinctive  essence  of  his  own 
personality,  and  no  longer  recognize  himself  as  a  person  who  is 
by  virtue  of  his  personality  an  end  in  himself,  to  be  served,  never 
to  be  used.  It  would  involve  the  absurdity  that  every  person 
must  recognize  every  other  person  as  an  end  in  himself  to  be 
served  not  used,  but  himself  as  not  an  end  in  himself,  as  not  to 
be  served,  but  only  to  serve  and  be  used.  And  it  would  leave 
out  that  powerful  and  indispensable  factor  both  in  personal  im¬ 
provement  and  the  progress  of  civilization  and  religion,  each 
person’s  regard  for  his  own  interest  and  well-being. 

Ethics  solves  this  problem  by  the  Christian  law,  Thou  shalt 
love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart  and  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 

1  “The  Kingdom  of  Christ  on  Earth,”  by  Samuel  Harris,  pp.  162,  163. 

VOL.  11.  —  26 


402  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


self.  This  law  recognizes  all  human  beings  in  one  moral  system 
under  the  government  of  one  and  the  same  God  and  in  allegiance 
to  one  and  the  same  law  of  universal  love  ;  and  so  each  one  hav¬ 
ing  rights  as  well  as  owing  duties,  every  duty  to  another  involving 
his  correlative  right,  and  all  bound  to  reciprocal  trust  and  ser¬ 
vice.  Thus  each  is  to  love  and  serve  himself  equally  as  his 
neighbor,  and  his  neighbor  equally  as  himself.  Thus  egoism  and 
altruism  are  shown  to  be  in  harmony  as  complemental  aspects  of 
the  life  of  universal  love. 

The  same  is  a  fundamental  problem  of  political  economy.  And 
this  science  must  accept  the  solution  of  it  by  Christian  ethics,  for 
there  is  no  other.  On  the  basis  of  an  exclusive  regard  to  one’s 
own  interest,  on  which  that  science  is  commonly  rested,  no  solu¬ 
tion  is  possible. 

5.  The  practical  realization  of  the  Christian  conception  of  busi¬ 
ness  as  a  service  to  man  in  loving  trust  and  obedience  to  God  is 
the  only  true  and  effectual  solution  of  the  great  economical  prob¬ 
lems  now  agitating  society,  such  as  the  relations  of  capital  and 
labor,  the  adjustment  of  combinations  and  competition,  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  co-operation,  and  the  resulting  tendencies  to  socialism, 
communism,  and  anarchy.  These  can  never  be  harmonized  so 
long  as  both  in  the  use  of  capital  and  in  labor,  both  in  competi¬ 
tion  and  in  combination,  men  are  acting  in  exclusive  egoism,  —  are 
looking  out  solely  for  their  own  gains,  not  concerned  to  make 
their  business  in  its  prosecution  and  products  a  service  to  man, 
nor  to  render  to  all  with  whom  they  deal  service  equivalent  to 
that  which  is  received.  Thus  conditioned,  both  competition  and 
combination  are  a  warfare  of  man  on  man.  They  imply  the  use 
of  skill,  power,  capital,  or  advantage  of  any  kind  to  take  away 
from  another  his  work  or  his  trade  and  to  crowd  him  out  of  the 
way.  Thus,  for  example,  combinations  of  labor  prevent  men, 
often  by  violence,  from  working,  or  forbid  the  young  to  learn  a 
trade  ;  and  trusts  and  combinations  of  capital  force  men  out  of  the 
business  by  taking  away  their  trade.  Both  strive  to  deprive  men 
of  their  right  to  earn  a  living.  The  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest, 
that  is,  that  the  strong  will  crowd  out  the  weak,  may  be  a  law  of 
the  physical  system.  The  law  of  personal  beings  in  the  moral  sys¬ 
tem  is  the  law  of  love.  Both  combination  and  competition  in  the 
selfish  pursuit  of  gain  are  attempts  to  establish  in  the  moral  system 
the  law  of  force,  that  the  strong  crowd  out  the  weak,  in  place  of 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


403 


the  law  of  love.  Thus  conditioned  they  must  be  in  perpetual 
warfare. 

But  if  work  and  business  are  done  as  a  service  of  man  the 
competition  and  combination  are  harmonized  under  the  law  of 
love,  and  each  becomes  a  factor  in  doing  business  and  thereby 
rendering  service  to  man.  Competition  would  then  be  in  doing 
more  and  better  work,  in  producing  more  and  better  products, 
and  in  fidelity,  honesty,  and  honor  in  all  transactions.  Incidental 
to  this  would  be  increased  gain ;  for  he  who  did  the  most  and  best 
work  would  get  the  highest  wages  and  the  most  constant  employ¬ 
ment  ;  and  he  who  produced  or  sold  the  best  articles  would  get 
the  highest  price  and  the  most  custom.  And  the  customer,  if  he  « 
were  doing  business  as  a  service  to  men,  returning  an  equivalent 
for  what  he  receives,  would  willingly  pay  the  higher  wages  and 
the  higher  price.  But  a  difficulty  in  the  present  state  of  society 
is  that  buyers  demand  cheapness  rather  than  excellence  in  what 
they  buy,  and  low  wages,  slighted  work  and  adulterated  products 
are  the  result. 

If  business  and  work  were  done  as  service  to  men,  combination 
also  would  have  its  legitimate  place  and  become  an  important  and 
beneficent  factor  in  business  and  in  promoting  civilization.  Com¬ 
bination  is  co-operation,  and  as  such  is  indispensable  at  every 
stage  of  human  progress.  Even  savages  help  one  another,  in 
doing  what  one  cannot  do  alone.  As  civilization  advances,  co¬ 
operation  and  combination  become  more  necessary,  and  the  com¬ 
binations  become  larger,  more  definite  and  longer  continued.  As 
man  gains  command  of  the  powers  and  resources  of  nature,  the 
forces  which  he  uses  through  machinery  become  too  great  and 
complicated  and  the  enterprises  of  industry  too  vast  for  an  indi¬ 
vidual  to  manage.  Hence  partnerships  and  corporations  are  a 
necessity  of  civilization  and  indispensable  to  the  progress  of 
man. 

A  proposed  alternative  is  to  give  the  management  of  these 
larger  enterprises  of  business  to  the  government.  The  alleged 
reason  for  this  is  that  corporations  and  combinations  or  trusts 
open  the  way  to  oppression  ;  and  that  the  business  is  administered 
for  the  emolument  of  the  few  and  the  crushing  out  of  all  competi¬ 
tors.  But  if  so,  and  society  remains  at  the  same  moral  level,  the 
necessary  inference  is  that,  when  the  principle  of  combination  is 
thus  carried  out  and  all  the  wealth  and  business  of  the  country  is 


404  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


put  into  possession  of  one  single  corporation  called  the  govern¬ 
ment,  it  would  insure  evils  of  the  same  sort  in  a  vastly  greater 
degree,  and  would  issue  in  the  helpless  subjection  of  the  many  to 
the  few.  And  certainly  men  with  brains  powerful  enough  to  origi¬ 
nate  and  organize  such  a  great  enterprise,  and  who  have  spent 
years  familiarizing  themselves  with  its  management,  and  who  are 
pecuniarily  interested  in  its  success,  are  more  likely  to  manage  it 
well  than  politicians  elected  to  office  for  a  short  period  or  ap¬ 
pointed  as  a  reward  for  partisan  political  service.  The  ideas  of 
political  economy  current  before  the  wonderful  inventions  now 
giving  man  control  of  the  mightiest  forces  of  nature,  must  give 
•  way  to  new  ideas  and  methods  adapted  to  the  progress  of  civiliza¬ 
tion.  Hence  the  jealousy  of  corporations  and  the  opposition  to 
them  is  largely  undiscriminating  and  unreasonable.  In  the  early 
days  of  railroads  there  were  many  short  roads  owned  and  managed 
by  distinct  corporations,  as,  for  example,  between  Buffalo  and 
Albany,  between  New  York  and  Boston.  The  consolidation  of 
these  shorter  roads  has  in  fact  usually,  if  not  always,  resulted  in 
greater  accommodation  and  better  service  to  the  public  and  lower 
rates  for  passengers  and  freight.  And,  with  an  honest  purpose  to 
serve  the  public,  such  combinations  involve  less  expense  and 
greater  facilities  for  doing  the  work,  and  therefore  may  reasonably 
be  expected  to  produce  these  results. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  problems  of  the  relation  of  labor  and 
capital,  of  combination  and  competition,  will  have  their  complete 
solution  if  the  Christian  conception  of  business  and  work  as  a 
service  to  man  is  realized ;  and  no  other  solution  is  possible. 
And  this  is  possible  only  as  persons  love  their  neighbors  as  them¬ 
selves  and  practically  exercise  this  love  in  doing  all  their  work 
and  business.  Legislation  may  attempt  to  regulate  combination 
and  competition  so  as  to  restrain  them  from  the  evils  occasioned 
by  them  under  the  rule  of  the  selfish  desire  of  gain.  But  nothing 
can  remove  the  evil  short  of  bringing  society  into  conformity  with 
the  Christian  law  of  love. 

6.  Is  it  possible  that  man  will  ever  attain  a  civilization  in  which 
all  work  and  business  will  be  done  as  a  Christian  service  to  man 
and  not  in  selfishness  merely  for  personal  gain?  Is  it  reasonable 
to  propose  it  as  a  definite  and  dominant  aim,  and  to  work  for 
it  in  the  expectation  of  success?  Or  is  it  only  a  Utopian  idea 
and  expectation  cherished  only  by  doctrinaires  and  sentimental- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


405 


ists?  The  great  majority  of  those  who  claim  to  be  practical  men 
seem  to  regard  it  as  the  latter.  And  yet  it  is  a  civilization  like 
that  which  Herbert  Spencer  declares  must  be  the  inevitable  result 
of  the  natural  evolution  of  man  in  society.  From  a  widely  differ¬ 
ent  point  of  view  John  Stuart  Mill  reaches  the  conclusion  that 
such  a  civilization  is  attainable,  and  that  men  ought  to  work  for 
its  attainment.1  These  two  writers  start  from  different  points  of 
view,  and  reach  their  conclusion  by  different  lines  of  thought 
independent  of  each  other,  and  with  no  acknowledgment  of 
dependence  on  the  teaching  of  Christ.  But  more  than  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago  Christ  announced  the  law  of  service  as  the  law 
of  his  kingdom ;  greatness  for  service  and  greatness  by  service. 
And  he  explicitly  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  law  of  service 
was  to  be  the  principle  of  a  new  civilization  in  the  kingdom  of 
righteousness  and  good-will  which  he  was  about  to  establish. 
Christianity  gives  no  encouragement  to  merely  artificial  and 
external  changes,  in  which  the  tyranny  of  a  single  despot  over 
society  gives  place  to  the  tyranny  of  society  over  the  individual, 
as  in  the  democracy  of  the  first  French  revolution,  as  in  various 
proposed  forms  of  communism  and  extreme  socialism,  —  a  tyranny 
extending  its  regulation  and  espionage  to  the  affairs  of  private  life 
to  such  an  extent  and  minuteness  as  no  individual  despot  ever 
attempted  :  a  tyranny  becoming  practically  that  of  a  few  leaders 
seeking  their  own  advantage.  Christianity  aims  to  extend  Chris¬ 
tian  civilization  no  faster  or  farther  than  the  people  become  in 

1  “  We”  (himself  and  Mrs.  Taylor)  “looked  forward  to  a  time  .  .  .  when 
it  will  no  longer  either  be  or  be  thought  impossible  for  human  beings  to 
exert  themselves  strenuously  in  procuring  benefits  which  are  not  to  be  ex¬ 
clusively  their  own,  but  to  be  shared  with  the  society  they  belong  to.  .  .  . 
We  saw  clearly  that,  to  make  any  such  social  transformation  either  possible 
or  desirable,  an  equivalent  change  of  character  must  take  place  both  in  the 
uncultivated  herd  who  compose  the  laboring  classes,  and  in  the  immense 
majority  of  their  employers.  Both  these  classes  must  learn  by  practice  to 
labor  and  combine  for  generous,  or,  at  all  events,  for  public  and  social  pur¬ 
poses,  and  not,  as  hitherto,  solely  for  narrowly  interested  ones.  But  the 
capacity  to  do  this  has  always  existed  in  mankind,  and  is  not  now,  nor  is 
ever  likely  to  be,  extinct.  Education,  habit,  and  the  cultivation  of  the  senti¬ 
ment  of  patriotism  will  make  a  man  dig  or  weave  for  his  country  as  readily 
as  fight  for  his  country.  .  .  .  Interest  in  the  common  good  is  at  present  so 
weak  a  motive  in  the  generality,  not  because  it  cannot  be  otherwise,  but 
because  the  mind  is  not  accustomed  to  dwell  on  it,  as  it  dwells  from  morn¬ 
ing  till  night  on  things  which  tend  only  to  personal  advantage.”  (Auto¬ 
biography,  pp.  231-233.) 


40 6  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


heart  and  life  Christian,  in  actual  love  to  God  and  man.  All  thus 
christianized  will  spontaneously  do  all  work  and  business  as  a 
service  to  man  in  Christian  love.  All  who  have  faith  in  Christ 
and  in  the  triumph  of  his  kingdom,  must  believe  that  a  civilization 
will  be  realized  in  which  business  and  work  will  be  done  as  a  ser¬ 
vice  to  man  in  love  to  God  and  man.  And  it  is  a  great  need, 
perhaps  the  great  need  of  the  time,  that  all  Christians  should  pro¬ 
pose  its  realization  as  a  definite  and  prominent  object  for  which 
to  pray  and  labor. 

IV.  Christian  Service  in  Domestic  and  Social  Relations.  — 
A  Christian  has  opportunity  to  serve  men  outside  his  daily  busi¬ 
ness,  in  the  family,  and  in  all  other  relations  to  individuals  and  to 
society.  The  greater  part  of  this  activity  is  commonly  regarded 
as. secular.  Yet  the  Christian  love  to  God  and  man,  which  is 
religion,  must  pervade  and  vitalize  it  all  and  make  it  a  Christian 
service  to  man  in  obedience  to  God’s  law.  This  does  not  mean 
that  every  act  in  the  intercourse  of  life  is  to  be  done  by  rule  and 
in  explicit  consciousness  of  doing  a  duty.  A  mother  does  not  kiss 
her  babe  by  rule  and  as  an  act  of  duty.  But  in  all  the  inter¬ 
course  of  life  the  Christian  is  to  act  always  in  the  spirit  of  Christ, 
in  spontaneous  good-will,  in  readiness  to  help,  in  sweetness  and 
patience  of  love,  in  delicacy  of  regard  to  the  rights  and  interests 
of  others,  in  the  spontaneity  of  love  which  “  suffereth  long  and 
is  kind ;  which  envieth  not,  vaunteth  not  itself,  is  not  puffed  up, 
doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly,  seeketh  not  its  own,  is  not  pro¬ 
voked,  taketh  not  account  of  evil,  rejoiceth  not  in  unrighteous¬ 
ness  but  rejoiceth  with  the  truth,  beareth  all  things,  believeth  all 
things,  hopeth  all  things,  endureth  all  things ;  love  which  never 
faileth  ”  (i  Cor.  xiii.).  In  this  daily  intercourse  of  life  there  is 
opportunity  for  great  deeds  of  kindness ;  one  may  save  another’s 
life  at  the  peril  of  his  own.  And  in  sickness  and  bereavement,  in 
the  greater  embarrassments  and  trials  of  life  and  in  any  great 
emergency  are  opportunities  for  deeds  of  kindness  never  to  be 
forgotten  by  the  receiver.  But  opportunities  for  great  service  are 
comparatively  rare.  If  one  waits  for  them  he  will  neglect  a  large, 
probably  the  larger,  part  of  his  opportunities  for  useful  service. 

“  The  primal  duties  shine  aloft  like  stars  ; 

The  humble  charities,  that  soothe  and  bless, 

Lie  scattered  at  the  feet  of  man  like  flowers.” 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


407 


Life  is  made  up  of  comparatively  little  things.  There  are  oppor¬ 
tunities  for  kindly  service  every  hour.  If  it  is  only  to  make  a 
child  happy  for  a  while,  or  to  soften  for  any  one  the  minor  asper¬ 
ities  of  life,  or  to  lend  a  helping  hand  in  any  need,  it  may  be  the 
spontaneous  outbreathing  of  the  sweetness  and  power  of  Christ- 
like  love  in  a  real  service  to  man ; 

“  that  best  portion  of  a  good  man’s  life, 

Efis  little,  nameless,  unremembered  acts 
Of  kindness  and  of  love.” 

This  is  exemplified  in  the  life  of  Jesus.  On  one  occasion,  when 
the  disciples  had  been  disputing  which  of  them  should  be  the 
greatest,  Jesus  was  trying  to  teach  them  the  Christian  law  of 
service  in  his  kingdom,  that  he  who  would  be  first  must  be  a  min¬ 
ister  or  servant  to  all.  Then  he  took  a  little  child  in  his  arms 
and  said  :  “  Whosoever  shall  receive  one  of  such  little  children  in 
my  name  receiveth  me,  and  whosoever  receiveth  me,  receiveth  not 
me,  but  him  that  sent  me.”  Thus  he  stands  there  as  the  medium 
of  the  union  of  heaven  and  earth,  embracing  the  little  child  and 
binding  it  to  the  loving  heart  of  God.  What  an  object-lesson  is 
this  !  Before  these  disciples,  ambitious  of  personal  aggrandize¬ 
ment  in  what  they  expected  would  be  a  kingdom  of  this  world 
subduing  all  nations,  stands  the  Messianic  king  himself,  the  Lord 
of  Glory,  with  a  little  child  in  his  arms,  revealing  that  ministering 
to  a  babe  may  be  done  in  his  name  and  express  love  to  man 
like  his  own  ;  and  whoever  thus  receives  a  little  child  in  his  name 
and  ministers  to  it,  receives  him  and  ministers  to  him,  and  so 
receives  God  and  renders  service  to  him.  At  the  last  supper 
with  his  disciples,  when  the  same  question  arose  among  them, 
Jesus  washed  their  feet.  It  was  an  object-lesson,  teaching  not 
only  the  Christian  law  of  service,  but  also  that  any,  even  the 
humblest,  personal  service,  may  be  and  should  be  a  genuine  ex¬ 
pression  of  Christian  love.  And  once,  when  a  blind  beggar 
approached  him,  loathsome  to  look  on,  no  doubt,  as  blind  beggars 
of  the  East  are  wont  to  be,  Jesus  took  him  by  the  hand  and  led 
him  along  the  street  to  a  retired  place  and  there  restored  his 
sight.  Great  and  divine  was  the  service  to  the  blind  man  in 
restoring  his  sight.  But  scarcely  less  admirable  and  divine  the 
manifestation  of  the  Redeemer’s  love  in  the  kindly  service  of 
tenderly  leading  him  by  the  hand.  A  few  days  before  his  cruci¬ 
fixion,  while  he  was  at  supper  in  the  house  of  Lazarus,  Mary 


408  the  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


anointed  his  feet  with  a  costly  ointment.  When  she  was  censured 
for  not  selling  it  and  giving  it  to  the  poor,  Jesus  accepted  it  as 
a  fitting  and  pious  service.  “  The  house  was  filled  with  the  odor 
of  the  ointment.”  And  the  whole  world  is  still  fragrant  with  the 
sweetness  of  this  tribute  of  gratitude  and  love.  When  in  the 
house  of  Simon  the  leper,  a  woman  anointed  his  head  and  was  in 
like  manner  censured,  Jesus  not  only  approved  of  it,  but  also 
declared  :  “  Wheresoever  the  gospel  shall  be  preached  through¬ 
out  the  whole  world,  this  also  which  this  woman  hath  done  shall 
be  spoken  of  for  a  memorial  of  her  ”  (John  xii.  3-8  ;  Matth. 
xxvi.  6-13).  That  Christian  love  must  ramify  into  every  act  and 
vitalize  it  into  a  Christian  service  to  man  is  evident  also  from  the 
teachings  of  Christ  and  the  apostles.  Paul  says  :  “  Whether  ye 
eat  or  drink,  or  whatever  ye  do,  do  all  for  the  glory  of  God.” 
Jesus  says :  “  Whosoever  shall  give  to  drink  unto  one  of  these 
little  ones  a  cup  of  cold  water  only,  in  the  name  of  a  disciple, 
verily  I  say  unto  you,  he  shall  in  no  wise  lose  his  reward” 
(Matth.  x.  42). 

V.  Service  in  Acts  Designed  to  Exert  a  Directly  Re¬ 
ligious  Influence.  —  Man  is  to  be  served  in  acts  commonly 
regarded  as  distinctively  religious. 

1.  This  comprises  all  worship  and  personal  communion  with 
God,  prayer  and  intercession  for  all  men  and  for  the  advance¬ 
ment  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  It  comprises  the  ministry  of 
the  word  which  is  intrusted  to  the  church.  “The  Spirit  and  the 
Bride  say,  Come ;  and  let  him  who  heareth  say,  Come  ”  (Rev. 
xxii.  17).  Here  are  three  distinct  agencies  in  proclaiming  the 
gospel :  the  Spirit  is  everywhere  with  heavenly  influences  draw¬ 
ing  men  to  Christ ;  the  Bride,  that  is,  the  church  in  its  collective 
capacity,  by  sustaining  the  ministry  in  the  hands  of  pastors  and 
missionaries,  and  by  all  legitimate  agencies ;  and  the  individual, 
who  hears  the  gospel  and  accepts  Christ  as  offered  in  it,  is  to  ex¬ 
tend  the  invitation  to  others  and  use  all  his  influence  to  lead 
them  to  Christ.  This  type  of  service  includes  the  Christian  nur¬ 
ture  and  training  of  children  in  the  family  and  in  the  church,  and 
all  direct  personal  efforts  to  awaken  men  to  the  consciousness  of 
God  and  of  their  spiritual  needs  and  to  lead  them  to  begin  and 
to  help  them  to  live  the  Christian  life,  and  all  efforts,  all  gifts  of 
money,  and  all  co-operation  with  others  in  benevolent  associa- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


409 


tions  to  promote  Christian  education,  moral  reforms,  and  the 
advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  Here  is  a  vast  and 
important  sphere  of  service  additional  to  the  daily  business ;  and 
every  one  is  a  debtor  to  his  fellow-men  to  do  in  this  sphere  “  as 
much  as  in  him  is.”  Nor  is  this  service  separated  from  the  secu¬ 
lar  life,  but  intertwined  with  it.  The  daily  business  and  inter¬ 
course  of  life  open  incidentally  opportunities  for  every  one  to 
be  a  witness  for  Christ  and  for  the  worth  and  blessedness  of  the 
Christian  life  and  hope. 

2.  To  these  direct  efforts  the  unconscious  influence  of  the 
Christian  must  be  added  in  order  to  get  a  correct  estimate  of 
the  service  which  he  renders  in  advancing  the  kingdom  of  Christ. 
In  every  line  of  action  there  is  a  continuous  and  silent  influence 
of  the  individual’s  character  and  personality  which  is  of  funda¬ 
mental  importance,  and  must  always  be  taken  into  account  in 
estimating  the  service  which  any  one  renders  to  man. 

When  a  lame  man  asked  alms  of  Peter  and  John,  Peter  said 
to  him  :  “  Silver  and  gold  have  I  none ;  but  what  I  have  give  I 
thee.  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth,  rise  up  and 
walk.”  This  is  the  law  of  all  giving.  One  cannot  give  what  he 
has  not.  He  must  give  of  what  he  has.  In  giving  what  he  has 
the  influence  of  what  he  is  must  go  forth  with  what  he  does. 
This  influence  cannot  be  manufactured  to  order.  One  does  not 
make  it,  he  lives  it.  It  is  a  vital  growth.  And  each  peculiarity 
of  character  has  its  peculiarity  of  influence.  You  take  up  a 
handful  of  dry  seeds ;  they  look  much  alike  and  equally  dry  and 
dead.  But  in  each  is  a  peculiar  and  essential  character ;  and 
each  as  it  grows  reveals  itself  in  these  peculiar  characteristics. 
One  grows  into  wheat,  and  men  bless  it  as  food ;  another  into 
a  balsam-tree,  and  men  bless  it  as  medicine  ;  another  into  a 
nightshade,  and  men  shun  it  as  poison.  But  whether  full  of 
blessing  or  curse,  each  seed  will  certainly  put  forth  in  leaf, 
blossom,  and  fruit  just  its  own  life  and  character.  Even  the 
grafted  scion,  so  persistent  is  its  vital  character,  puts  forth  its 
own  peculiar  character,  not  that  of  the  stock  into  which  it  is 
grafted.  So  a  person’s  influence  is  the  blossom  and  fruit  of  his 
character,  the  simple  and  under  all  circumstances  persistent  out¬ 
growth  of  what  he  is.  Men  do  not  gather  grapes  of  thorns  nor 
figs  of  thistles.  Under  all  conditions  this  influence  from  one’s 
character,  life,  and  personality  diffuses  itself  spontaneously,  con- 


410  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


tinuously,  and  unconsciously,  as  light  radiates  from  a  star,  as 
fragrance  exhales  from  a  rose,  or  infection  from  a  pest-house. 

This  unconscious  influence  is  probably  the  most  important  and 
effective  part  of  the  influence  exerted  in  any  human  life.  Elec¬ 
tricity  attracts  most  attention  in  lightning  splitting  the  oak  and  the 
thunder  crashing  in  the  sky.  Yet  it  is  not  in  these  that  its  great¬ 
est  work  is  done,  but  as  it  courses  unnoticed  through  all  living 
organizations,  and  all-pervasive  is  ready  to  flash  out  wherever  art 
provides  an  outlet,  and  to  run  wherever  art  provides  a  conductor. 
So  the  greater  part  of  a  person’s  influence  may  be  the  silent  and 
unconscious  influence  of  what  he  is,  which  is  vital  in  all  his  action, 
streams  out  at  every  point  of  contact  with  man,  and  flashes  along 
every  line  of  his  communication  with  society.  For  example,  the 
influence  of  Christian  conversation  may  not  be  so  much  in  direct 
efforts  to  convince  a  person  of  error,  to  induce  him  to  reform 
from  a  bad  habit,  or  to  begin  a  Christian  life,  important  as  these 
are,  as  in  the  spontaneous  expression  of  Christian  thought  or 
feeling  on  all  occasions,  and  the  consideration  of  all  subjects 
from  a  Christian  point  of  view.  In  the  Christian  education  of 
a  family,  direct  instruction  and  admonition  are  important.  Yet 
more  important  and  influential  is  the  spiritual  atmosphere  of  the 
home,  pure  and  invigorating,  or  foul  and  mephitic,  which  the 
children  continually  breathe.  In  deliberately  planned  efforts  to 
influence  a  person,  the  influence  of  character  is  essential.  It  is 
like  the  heavy  head  of  an  axe  which  gives  momentum  to  the 
stroke,  without  which  the  edge,  however  sharp,  could  not  fell  a 
tree.  We  call  it  weight  of  character.  Here  is  an  influence 
which  comes  in  from  a  person’s  conduct  of  his  business.  His 
character  in  his  business  and  daily  work  enforces  or  nullifies  the 
influence  of  his  Christian  counsels  and  of  all  his  direct  efforts  to 
promote  religion  and  the  well-being  of  society. 

And  a  person  puts  forth  his  greatest  power  in  any  work  only 
when  his  heart  is  in  it.  If  an  act  is  not  hearty  it  is  not  mighty. 
This  is  exemplified  in  eloquence.  Cotton  Mather  says  of  Rev. 
Jonathan  Mitchell  that  the  truth  which  he  preached  had  been, 
as  it  were,  seethed  into  the  very  substance  of  his  soul.1  This  is 
the  only  way  to  be  eloquent.  Words  are  but  wind.  But  when 
the  heart  speaks  in  them,  when  its  tenderness  trembles  on  the 
lips  and  mellows  in  the  tones,  when  its  firm  resolve  clangs  in  the 

1  “  Magnalia,”  vol.  ii.  p.  76. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN  41  I 

brazen  throat,  when  its  fierce  passions  flash  in  the  eye  and  shriek 
like  a  hissing  tempest  in  the  accents,  then  words  are  powers ; 
they  become  like  Luther’s  words,  “  half-battles.”  Eloquence  is 
speech  with  the  heart  in  it,  with  the  whole  man  in  it.  Daniel 
Webster  said  that  eloquence  comes,  if  it  comes  at  all,  like  the 
breaking  of  a  fountain  from  the  earth  or  the  eruption  of  a  vol¬ 
cano.  A  fit  comparison ;  for  eloquence  is  an  eruption  of  soul, 
whether  genial  as  a  fountain  or  terrible  as  a  volcano.  Here  is 
the  difference  between  eloquence  and  dramatic  acting.  Elo¬ 
quence  is  the  expression  of  conviction,  determination,  and  feel¬ 
ing  bursting  all  alive  from  the  soul ;  acting  is  the  imitation  of 
this  expression.  As  Sheridan  said,  “1  go  to  hear  Rowland  Hill 
because  his  ideas  come  red-hot  from  his  heart.”  A  man  can  be 
eloquent  only  as  he  speaks  the  deep  convictions  of  his  own  mind, 
the  truths  which  live  in  the  life  of  his  own  soul.  Otherwise  he 
sinks  into  an  actor  in  the  lecture  room,  a  demagogue  on  the 
rostrum,  a  charlatan  or  a  dullard  in  the  pulpit.  The  ancients 
taught  that  eloquence  is  a  virtue.  Certainly  it  can  reach  its 
highest  power  only  in  alliance  with  truth,  virtue,  and  religion. 
This  exemplifies  what  is  true  of  all  action.  The  arm  is  power¬ 
less  when  the  heart  no  longer  throbs  in  it. 

This  unconscious  influence  greatens  the  influence  of  every  one 
beyond  his  own  conception  of  it.  Life  is  short.  But  every  per¬ 
son  exerts  influence  for  good  or  evil,  which  is  perpetuated  for¬ 
ever  and  widely  diffused  from  one  to  another.  Even  a  babe  that 
dies  leaves  behind  precious  and  imperishable  memories ;  the  love 
it  awakened  survives,  reaching  out  after  it  beyond  the  grave  and 
awakening  the  hope  and  expectation  of  meeting  it  again  in  the 
life  immortal.  If  one  influences  a  sinner  to  accept  God’s  grace 
and  return  to  him  beginning  the  life  of  love,  that  influence  in  its 
result  is  perpetuated  forever  in  the  new  life  of  the  converted  per¬ 
son  and  multiplied  by  his  influence  in  leading  others  to  begin  the 
life  of  love,  and  in  ever  widening  circles  by  their  good  deeds  in 
advancing  the  kingdom  of  God  and  promoting  the  well-being  of 
mankind.  “  He  who  converteth  a  sinner  from  the  error  of  his 
way,  shall  save  a  soul  from  death  and  shall  cover  a  multitude 
of  sins”  (James  v.  20). 

If  one  acts  a  part  in  life,  trying  to  appear  to  be  what  he  is  not, 
much  of  his  thought  and  energy  will  be  expended  in  keeping  up 
appearances  in  the  part  he  is  acting.  Even  then  he  will  not 


412  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


succeed.  No  one  can  avoid  giving  out  influence  in  accordance 
with  his  character.  The  soul  expresses  itself,  not  by  purposed 
acts  and  words  alone,  but  spontaneously  and  unconsciously  by 
the  tones,  the  attitude,  the  eye,  the  face,  natural  signs  which 
the  will  does  not  control.  What  a  tell-tale  is  the  human  face  ; 
how  feelings,  thoughts  and  purposes  flash  out  through  it,  which 
the  words  would  deny  and  the  actions  would  conceal.  One 
sometimes  hears  a  tone  of  voice  so  tender  that  the  history  of 
a  heart’s  discipline  of  sorrow  and  struggle  is  concentrated  in  it. 
Sometimes  a  look  betrays  the  carefully  guarded  secret  of  a  life. 
No  schooling  can  train  these  natural  signal-bearers  of  the  soul 
to  lie.  After  a  time  the  history  of  the  life  gets  itself  written 
on  the  face.  Says  the  Son  of  Sirach,  “  A  man  is  known  by 
his  look,  a  wise  man  when  thou  seest  him  is  known  by  his  counte¬ 
nance.  The  attire  of  the  body,  the  laughter  of  the  teeth,  and 
the  "gait  of  the  man  show  what  he  is  ”  (Ecclesiasticus,  xix.  29, 
30).  Sensuality  is  a  Circe, 

whose  pleasing  poison 

The  visage  quite  transforms  of  him  who  drinks, 

And  the  inglorious  likeness  of  a  beast 
Fixes  instead,  unmoulding  reason’s  mintage 
Charactered  in  the  face.  — Milton,  Counts. 

General  Fremont  said  that  some  tribes  of  Indians  among  the 
Rocky  Mountains  had  the  faces  of  beasts  of  prey ;  the  story  of 
their  ravening  lives  from  generation  to  generation  stamped  on 
their  faces.  Chrysostom  says  of  Bishop  Flavian  :  “  The  counte¬ 
nance  of  the  holy  man  is  full  of  spiritual  power.”  What  prayers, 
what  lofty  contemplations,  what  sublime  purposes,  what  self- 
renouncing  beneficence,  of  which  at  last  the  seal  had  been 
set  on  the  face  and  made  it  radiant  with  love.  It  is  said  of 
Stephen,  arraigned  before  the  Sanhedrin,  that  “  all  who  sat  in 
the  Council,  looking  steadfastly  on  him,  beheld  his  face  as  it 
had  been  the  face  of  an  angel.”  A  noble  life  gradually  imprints 
itself  on  the  face  and  form,  — 

Till  oft  converse  with  heavenly  habitants 
Begins  to  cast  a  beam  on  the  outward  shape, 

The  unpolluted  temple  of  the  mind, 

And  turns  it  by  degrees  to  the  soul’s  essence. 

Milton,  Com  us. 

For  all  these  reasons  a  person  must  give  out  what  there-  is  in  him  ; 
the  influence  of  what  he  really  is  must  ooze  out  from  him. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


413 


No  vigilance  of  dissimulation  can  watch  all  the  avenues  of  ex¬ 
pression  ;  no  perseverance  in  insincerity  and  hypocrisy  can 
always  be  on  the  alert  to  suppress  these  signals  of  nature.  What¬ 
ever  a  person  professes,  however  he  schools  himself  to  a  line 
of  action  in  which  his  heart  is  not,  it  is  inevitable  that  he  will  give 
out  what  is  in  him,  that  his  real  character  will  find  expression. 
Whatever  evil  is  in  a  man  will  in  some  way  exhale  and  poison 
even  his  honest  efforts  to  do  good. 

This  does  not  mean  that  one  can  never  exert  any  influence 
contrary  to  his  inmost  character ;  but  only  that  his  influence 
will  at  some  point  be  in  accordance  with  it.  His  character 
will  in  some  way  work  itself  into  his  influence  and  imbue  it. 
A  bad  man  may  advocate  a  good  cause.  An  infidel  may  advo¬ 
cate  temperance  or  a  political  party,  and  may  do  good  service 
in  that  particular.  But,  however  he  may  try,  he  cannot  avoid 
carrying  with  him  the  infection  of  his  opposition  to  religion. 
So  one  having  the  smallpox  may  send  a  blanket  from  his  bed  to 
a  poor  person.  It  will  keep  the  person  warm  as  any  other 
blanket  would ;  and  it  will  give  him  the  smallpox.  In  like 
manner  the  influence  of  Christian  character  not  only  vitalizes 
and  intensifies  the  influence  of  direct  Christian  effort  to  do  good, 
but  also  reaches  with  its  silent  and  benign  efficacy  beyond  such 
efforts. 

“  How  far  that  little  candle  sends  its  beams; 

So  shines  a  good  deed  in  a  naughty  world.” 

This  is  a  legitimate  encouragement  to  earnest  Christians,  who 
through  the  pressure  of  necessary  care  and  business  have  little 
time  for  direct  efforts  to  lead  men  from  wrong-doing  to  Christ 
and  who  are  therefore  discouraged  because  they  think  they 
are  doing  so  little  good.  Their  Christian  character  is  witnessing 
for  Christ  in  everything  they  do  and  giving  weight  to  every 
word  and  act  designed  directly  to  exert  religious  influence. 

Therefore  complete  sincerity,  the  expression  of  the  inmost 
soul  in  word  and  deed,  is  essential  to  the  most  effective  influence. 
If  one  would  do  good  he  must  first  be  good.  The  first  requisite 
for  exerting  Christian  influence  is  to  be  thoroughly  Christian ; 
to  have  the  spirit  of  Christ  breathing  through  all  words  and 
deeds ;  to  have  the  character  itself  silently  and  unconsciously 
giving  forth  a  Christian  influence.  The  shadow  of  Peter  passing 
by  healed  the  sick.  Every  Christian  ought  so  to  live  that  his 


4 14  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


shadow  should  bless  every  one  on  whom  it  may  fall.  As  when 
a  certain  pastor  recently  became  unable  to  preach,  his  parish¬ 
ioners  said  it  was  worth  his  whole  salary  only  to  have  him 
walk  the  streets.  A  soldier  in  the  hospital  had  his  cot  moved 
so  that  the  shadow  of  Florence  Nightingale  might  fall  on  him 
as  she  passed  in  her  daily  ministrations ;  and  others  were  seen 
to  kiss  her  shadow  as  it  moved  along  the  wall. 

Insincerity,  therefore,  is  enfeebling.  It  suppresses  the  vital 
force  of  character  and  prevents  its  natural  outgrowth  in  vigorous 
and  harmonious  action ;  it  destroys  the  unity  and  symmetry  of 
the  life ;  it  substitutes  the  artificial  for  the  natural ;  it  compels 
the  expenditure  of  one  part  of  the  energies  in  watching  and 
suppressing  the  other  part ;  it  makes  the  soul  suspicious  of  and 
antagonistic  to  itself.  It  thus  makes  it  impossible  for  the  person 
to  realize  his  highest  efficiency.  To  this,  sincerity  is  essential. 

To  be  sincere  is  to  be  one’s  self  without  trying  to  be  another. 
It  is  acting  out  one’s  character  and  individuality.  Let  one’s 
heart  be  full  of  love,  and  his  words  and  actions  will  be  vital 
with  its  throbbing  life  ;  let  his  soul  be  full  of  noble  thoughts, 
purposes,  and  affections,  and  his  life  will  be  the  spontaneous 
expression  of  them  in  noble  words  and  deeds.  Even  if  one 
is  mean,  unjust,  and  selfish,  insincerity  only  adds  sin  to  sin 
by  making  his  whole  life  a  lie  in  trying  to  pass  himself  off  for 
what  he  is  not.  We  sympathize  with  Dr.  Johnson  in  liking 
a  good  hater ;  we  like  the  heartiness,  though  we  dislike  the  hate. 
Hence,  imitation,  so  far  as  it  is  mere  mechanical  copying,  is 
a  form  of  insincerity  and  an  evidence  of  weakness.  It  is  not 
being  one’s  self,  but  it  is  trying  to  act  the  part  of  another. 
The  action  is  no  longer  the  expression  of  one’s  own  inward  life, 
but  of  that  of  another.  And  imitation  is  often  only  of  a  superficial 
trait  or  even  of  a  defect,  and  not  of  the  real  character  and 
power ;  as  the  young  men  of  Greece  held  their  necks  awry,  like 
Alexander,  and  the  young  noblemen  of  England  spoke  thick, 
like  Harry  Percy.  Hence,  in  art  and  literature,  imitation  is  a 
mark  of  weakness  ;  and  it  is  not.  less  so  in  moral  life.  It  is 
right  indeed  to  revere  the  greatly  good  and  to  aspire  to  be  like 
them.  But  if,  admiring  a  stately  oak,  you  would  have  its  like  on 
your  own  grounds,  you  cannot  manufacture  its  like  by  carpentry ; 
you  can  get  it  only  by  the  growth  of  a  living  oak  from  the  acorn. 
So  there  is  but  one  way  to  become  like  those  who  are  great 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


415 


in  goodness,  and  that  is  to  catch  their  spirit,  to  be  possessed  by 
their  principles,  motives  and  character;  and  to  let  this  inward 
life  unfold  in  action.  Very  different  in  your  peculiar  individuality 
and  conditions  may  the  outward  history  of  your  life  be,  but 
in  spirit  and  character  the  same  ;  as  the  gnarled  and  century 
old  oak  of  the  mountain  is  the  same  with  the  smooth  young  oak 
of  the  park.  If  one  would  live  like  Christ,  he  must  love  like 
Christ.  All  less  than  this  is  but  imitation,  copying  the  outward 
act  but  missing  the  inward  nobleness.  And  if  imitation  is  all, 
life  is  but  a  masked  and  buskined  stage-scene. 

Thus  it  appears  that  religion  with  its  benign  influence  quicken¬ 
ing  spiritual  life  penetrates  every  sphere,  condition,  and  action  of 
human  life,  from  the  highest  exaltation  in  immediate  communion 
with  God  to  the  work  needful  to  supply  man’s  physical  needs. 
The  activity  of  the  whole  life  becomes  a  loving  service  to  man, 
ennobled  by  being  a  loving  trust  and  service  to  God.  Hegel 
says  :  “  Religion  must  contain  nothing  but  religion ;  as  such  it 
contains  only  eternal  spiritual  truth.”  1  But  religion  is  not  of  the 
intellect  alone  ;  it  does  not  consist  of  spiritual  truth  alone,  but  is 
life  in  harmony  with  spiritual  truth.  It  contains  nothing  but 
religion,  but  in  its  essence  as  religion  it  penetrates,  vitalizes  and 
renovates  the  entire  life.  God  has  revealed  himself  and  the  eter¬ 
nal  spiritual  truth  historically  under  human  limitations  and  condi¬ 
tions  in  Christ,  and  so  presented  the  ideal  of  humanity.  Religion 
which  corresponds  to  this  revelation  of  God  and  of  spiritual  truth, 
is  to  be  manifested  in  all  the  details  of  every  concrete  human  life, 
ennobling  it  by  revealing  its  real  relation  to  God,  and  progressively 
realizing  in  it  the  likeness  of  Christ,  and  therefore  the  likeness  of 
God.  “  He  that  receiveth  me,  receiveth  him  who  sent  me.” 

VI.  Duties  to  the  Good  and  to  the  Bad.  —  The  distribution 
of  duties  to  individuals  is  in  part  determined  by  the  character  of 
the  persons  to  be  served. 

1.  We  owe  peculiar  duties  to  Christians  because  they  are 
Christians.  So  Paul  teaches  :  “  As  we  have  opportunity,  let  us 
do  good  to  all  men,  especially  to  those  who  are  of  the  household 
of  faith  ”  (Gal.  vi.  10).  Christ  recognizes  the  same  when  he 
speaks  of  the  reward  of  one  who  receives  a  righteous  man  in  the 
name  of  a  righteous  man.  And  the  same  is  shown  in  the  scrip- 
1  Philosophie  der  Religion,  Vol.  I.  p.  152. 


41 6  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


tural  requirement  of  brotherly  love,  as  having  peculiarities  distinct 
from  universal  love  to  man.  We  have  complacency  in  them  on 
account  of  their  Christian  character,  which  we  cannot  have  in  the 
wicked.  We  can  trust  them  as  we  cannot  trust  the  wicked.  And 
the  kind  of  service  rendered  them  is  different,  since,  for  example, 
we  do  not  approach  them  as  unbelievers  and  impenitent  to  per¬ 
suade  them  to  come  to  Christ,  because  they  have  already  accepted 
him.  As  with  us  united  with  Christ,  there  is  a  peculiar  intimacy 
of  fellowship,  a  brotherhood  in  Christ.  This  love  in  Christ  must 
prompt  to  a  peculiar  care  of  their  good  name  and  a  peculiar  read¬ 
iness  to  help  them  in  need ;  a  church  should  take  special  care  of 
its  own  poor. 

2.  Love  to  man  includes  love  to  the  wicked,  and  involves 
peculiar  duties  to  them.  Christians  are  bound  to  make  Christ 
and  his  gospel  known  to  them,  and  to  the  utmost  extent  of  ability 
and  opportunity  to  endeavor  to  lead  them  to  accept  him  as  he  is 
offered  in  the  gospel,  and  so  to  return  from  their  life  of  sin  into 
union  with  God  in  the  life  of  universal  love.  Christians  are  bound 
always  to  cherish  good-will  to  the  unchristian  and  wicked,  desiring 
and  seeking  their  true  well-being.  Paul  classes  hatred  with  the 
works  of  the  flesh  (Gal.  v.  20),  and  universal  love  entirely  ex¬ 
cludes  hatred  or  malignity  towards  any  one.  So  Christ  says, 
Love  your  enemies,  and  Paul  commands,  Overcome  evil  with 
good. 

But  good-will  to  the  wicked  must  be  regulated  by  righteous¬ 
ness.  A  Christian  cannot  have  complacency  in  the  character  of 
the  wicked  ;  he  must  feel  displacency  toward  him.  In  the  exer¬ 
cise  of  reason  and  conscience  he  cannot  approve  him,  he  can  only 
condemn  him.  And  he  cannot  desire  that  he  be  blessed  and  attain 
well-being  while  continuing  in  sins,  for  that  would  be  desiring  the 
subversion  of  the  law  of  love,  the  constitution  of  the  universe,  and 
the  eternal  character  of  God.  The  desire  that  the  wicked  be 
punished  is  not  absolute  but  conditional.  It  presupposes  the 
benevolent  desire  that  they  forsake  sin,  return  to  the  normal  life  of 
trust  in  God,  and  be  blessed  in  the  life  of  universal  love.  If  they 
do  not,  it  is  the  desire  that  they  be  punished.  And  this  is  only  the 
other  side  of  the  desire  that  all  may  be  blessed  who  live  the  life  of 
love.  It  is  only  the  other  side  of  the  consent  of  the  will  to  God’s 
eternal  law  of  love  and  the  choice  that  it  be  universally  obeyed. 
It  is  only  the  consent  of  the  will  to  God’s  constitution  and  evolu- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


417 


tion  of  the  universe  in  accordance  with  the  eternal  principles  and 
laws  of  reason,  so  that  only  in  accordance  with  them  is  well-being 
possible.  Displacency  toward  sinners  is  only  the  reverse  side  of 
complacency  in  those  who  live  the  life  of  love.  It  is  as  impossible 
that  there  be  complacency  toward  the  latter  without  displacency 
toward  the  former,  as  it  is  that  there  be  sunbeams  which  do  not 
cast  a  shadow  when  obstructed.  And  it  is  equally  impossible 
that  one’s  will  should  fully  consent  to  the  law  of  love  and  choose 
that  all  who  live  the  life  of  love  be  blessed,  without  equally  choos¬ 
ing  that  all  who  live  selfish  lives,  so  long  as  they  continue  so  to 
do,  should  miss  all  true  well-being. 

Dr.  Bascom  says :  “  There  can  be  no  perfect  love  except 
between  perfect  beings.”  1  He  probably  had  in  mind  the  truth 
that  love  to  the  wicked  cannot  be  accompanied  by  complacency 
in  them.  But  this  does  not  detract  from  the  perfection  of  the 
love.  If  it  did,  God’s  love  to  sinners  revealed  in  Christ  would 
be  an  imperfect  love.  The  scriptures,  on  the  contrary,  present 
God’s  love  to  sinners,  as  revealed  in  Christ,  as  the  highest  type  of 
love.  “  Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  he  loved 
us  and  sent  his  Son  to  be  the  propitiation  for  our  sins.  God  com- 
mendeth  his  love  toward  us  in  that  while  we  were  yet  sinners 
Christ  died  for  us.  While  we  were  yet  enemies  we  were  recon¬ 
ciled  to  God  through  the  death  of  his  Son”  (1  John  iv.  10; 
Rom.  v.  8,  10).  It  is  the  highest  type  of  love,  not  so  much  in 
spite  of  his  displacency  toward  the  sinner  and  his  condemnation 
of  him,  but  in  consequence  of  it ;  since  it  is  a  love  seeking  the 
sinner  in  all  his  alienation  from  God,  while  yet  in  the  very  mani¬ 
festation  of  this  love  in  Christ,  the  supreme  and  inviolable  author¬ 
ity  and  sanctity  of  the  law  of  love  is  most  fully  revealed,  asserted, 
and  maintained.  And  so  the  righteousness  regulating  all  good¬ 
will  finds  in  God’s  love  in  Christ  its  fullest  expression.  This 
Christlike  love  to  sinners  is  the  highest  type  of  love  among  men, 
exemplified  by  the  analogy  of  natural  affection  in  a  mother’s 
undying  love  for  a  wayward  son,  and  the  anguish  of  soul  with 
which  she  labors  and  prays  to  reclaim  him.  To  feel  such  genuine 
sympathy  for  the  stupid,  the  mean-minded,  the  vicious,  as  to 
enable  us  to  seek  their  good  in  self-renouncing  and  righteous 
good-will  like  that  of  Christ,  is  the  most  divine  exercise  of  Chris¬ 
tian  love. 

1  Words  of  Christ,  p.  42. 

vol.  11.  —  27 


41 8  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


It  is  often  urged  that  we  are  to  abhor  the  sin  but  not  the  sin¬ 
ner  ;  that  our  displacency  and  condemnation  should  be  directed 
against  the  character,  not  against  the  person.  But  sin  or  char¬ 
acter  separated  from  the  person  is  a  mere  abstraction.  O.  B. 
Frothingham  says  truly  :  “  It  cannot  be  said  of  anybody  that  he 
has  been  able  to  discriminate  between  wrong-doers  and  wrong 
deeds.”  1  The  thought  of  sin  cannot  complete  itself  except  by 
referring  to  the  person  as  its  subject.  The  truth  for  which  they 
who  use  this  form  of  expression  are  groping,  is  that  which  I  have 
stated,  that  in  all  his  righteous  displacency  toward  the  sinner  and 
condemnation  of  him,  the  Christian  exercises  never-failing  good¬ 
will.  He  yearns  for  his  conversion  and  salvation,  and  mourns  his 
persistence  in  sin  which  insures  his  condemnation  and  his  failure 
to  attain  true  well-being.  So  Christ  wept  over  Jerusalem  and  said, 
“  How  often  would  I  have  gathered  you  as  a  hen  doth  gather  her 
chickens  under  her  wings;  and  ye  would  not”  (Matth.  xxiii.  37  ; 
Luke  xix.  41,  42 ) . 

VII.  Duties  to  One’s  Self  and  to  One’s  Own. — The  right 
distribution  of  duties  requires  the  recognition  of  peculiar  duties 
to  one’s  self  and  to  one’s  own.  These  must  be  taken  into  account 
in  determining  one’s  duty  to  others. 

1.  This  must  be  so  for  the  following  reasons. 

First,  this  is  the  doctrine  of  Christianity.  One’s  self  is  recog¬ 
nized  in  the  second  great  commandment  as  an  object  of  trust  and 
service  in  love  equally  with  one’s  neighbor.  Christ  and  the  apostles 
as  well  as  the  prophets  in  the  Old  Testament  appeal  to  men  to  re¬ 
cognize  the  nobler  ends  and  higher  possibilities  of  their  being  and 
to  seek  their  true  well-being ;  they  enjoin  the  special  duties  of 
parents  and  children  ;  they  inculcate  the  prudential  virtues ;  they 
require  men  to  support  themselves  and  their  families.  Paul  ex¬ 
horts  men  “  that  with  quietness  they  work  and  eat  their  own 
bread  ”  ;  “  that  ye  study  to  be  quiet  and  to  do  your  own  business 
and  to  work  with  your  own  hands,  as  I  commanded  you  ”  ;  “  that  ye 
may  walk  honestly  toward  them  who  are  without,  and  may  have  lack 
of  nothing  ”  ;  “  for  if  any  man  will  not  work,  neither  let  him  eat  ”  ; 
“  but  if  any  provideth  not  for  his  own,  and  especially  his  own  house¬ 
hold,  he  hath  denied  the  faith  and  is  worse  than  an  unbeliever.”  2 

1  Transcendentalism,  p.  309. 

2  2  Thess.  iii.  11,  12;  1  Thess.  iv.  11,  12;  1  Tim.  v.  8. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


419 


Herbert  Spencer  argues  against  Christianity  as  if  it  were  exclu¬ 
sive  altruism,  requiring  every  person  in  every  case  to  prefer  the 
good  of  others  to  his  own.  This  is  a  gross  misrepresentation 
which  needs  no  further  refutation.  In  fact,  I  am  not  aware  that 
this  doctrine,  laboriously  controverted  by  Mr.  Spencer,  was  ever 
taught  in  any  system  of  ethics  or  religion.  The  choice  in  which  a 
person  consents  to  the  second  great  commandment  of  the  law  of 
love  and  comes  into  harmony  with  it,  is  not  the  choice  of  other 
people  in  preference  to  himself  as  the  object  of  trust  and  service  ; 
it  is  the  choice  of  all  people  including  himself  as  objects  of  trust 
and  service  in  their  common  relations  in  the  moral  system  under 
the  government  of  God,  in  preference  to  himself  as  the  one 
supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
others. 

Therefore,  when  I  speak  of  Christian  service  to  man,  I  do  not 
mean  service  to  others  exclusive  of  myself,  but  service  to  man  in¬ 
cluding  myself.  My  service  to  myself  is  as  really  service  to  man 
as  is  my  service  to  a  neighbor.  And  Christianity  requires  peculiar 
services  to  self  as  an  essential  part  of  service  to  man. 

Secondly,  man’s  constitutional  desires  and  affections  necessi¬ 
tate  an  interest  in  himself  and  his  own  such  as  he  cannot  feel  for 
others.  To  forbid  it  would  be  to  require  him  to  divest  himself  of 
his  humanity  and  cease  to  be  a  man. 

The  objection  is  sometimes  urged  that  it  is  impossible  for  one 
to  love  his  neighbor  as  himself ;  and  sincere  Christians  are  some¬ 
times  troubled  in  conscience  lest  they  are  not  obeying  the  law  of 
love,  because  they  cannot  help  feeling  more  interest  in  their  own 
families  and  friends,  both  for  their  temporal  and  their  spiritual  wel¬ 
fare,  than  in  those  of  others.  This  arises  from  not  distinguishing 
between  the  love  required  by  Cod’s  law  and  the  natural  and  instinc¬ 
tive  desires  and  affections.  The  love  required  by  the  law  is  not 
an  instinctive  affection,  but  a  free  choice  of  the  will  in  the  light 
of  reason.  One  thus  chooses  himself  as  an  object  of  trust  and 
service  so  far  as  reason  sees  that  he  is  entitled  to  this  trust  and 
service  in  accordance  with  his  real  relations  to  God  and  the  moral 
system  and  with  the  law  of  universal  love.  This  rational  love  which 
the  law  requires  does  not  extinguish  the  natural  and  instinctive 
affections.  It  only  regulates  them,  insures  their  moral  develop¬ 
ment  and  vitalizes  them  in  their  exercise  with  its  higher  and 
spiritual  life.  The  instinct  of  self-preservation,  the  desire  of  hap- 


420  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


piness,  of  esteem,  of  acquisition,  the  conjugal,  parental,  and  filial 
love,  and  all  constitutional  affections,  desires,  and  appetites  remain 
unchanged.  These  necessarily  involve  a  peculiar  interest  in  one’s 
self  and  one’s  own,  such  as  cannot  be  felt  in  another,  and  require 
peculiar  services  not  due  to  another.  This  Christianity  recognizes 
and  sanctions.  If  it  did  not  it  would  be  antagonistic  to  human¬ 
ity.  It  would  dehumanize  man  instead  of  developing  and  enno¬ 
bling  him. 

Thirdly,  the  putting  forth  of  the  energies  under  the  stimulus  of 
the  natural  egoistic  desires  and  affections  is  an  essential  factor  in 
the  education  and  development  of  the  man.  The  egoistic  im¬ 
pulses  are  inherent  in  the  constitution  of  man  as  really  as  are  the 
altruistic.  The  necessity  that  a  person  support  himself  and  his 
family,  the  desire  successfully  to  carry  out  plans  of  work  and  life, 
the  laudable  ambition  to  make  the  most  of  himself,  resoluteness  in 
meeting  and  overcoming  obstacles  and  opposition,  perseverance 
under  difficulties,  are  legitimate  influences  in  the  right  conduct  of 
life  and  the  development  of  right  character.  The  egoistic  im¬ 
pulses  stimulate  the  individual  to  put  forth  his  energies  and  are 
an  indispensable  factor  in  the  education  and  development  of  the 
man,  in  realizing  his  highest  achievements,  and  in  promoting  the 
progress  of  society. 

This  is  necessarily  implied  in  the  fact  that  the  individual  is  the 
unit  of  society,  and  that  the  right  education,  development,  and 
culture  of  the  individual  are  essential  to  the  education  and  devel¬ 
opment  of  mankind  and  to  the  progress  of  society  in  civilization, 
culture,  and  well-being.  This  is  true,  while  we  recognize  the  full 
significance  of  the  unity  of  mankind  through  the  race  connection 
and  the  necessity  that  men  live  and  act  in  society  to  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  individual.  “  It  is  not  good  that  the  man  should  be 
alone  ”  (Gen.  ii.  18).  A  person  living  from  early  infancy  in  soli¬ 
tary  isolation  from  his  fellow-men  could  not  realize  his  normal 
development ;  he  would  grow  up  an  imbecile. 

Any  system  of  ethics  which  is  the  development  merely  of  self- 
love  or  the  desire  of  happiness,  is  radically  erroneous  and  in  its 
practical  influence  incompatible  with  the  normal  development  of 
the  individual  and  the  true  progress  of  society.  On  the  other 
hand,  ethics  which  is  the  development  only  of  the  altruistic  im¬ 
pulses  of  humanity  would  be  equally  one-sided  and  inadequate. 
Any  system  of  communism  or  of  extreme  socialism,  which  would 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


421 


extinguish  all  private  ownership  of  property,  and  have  all  property 
owned,  all  work  directed,  and  all  persons  supported  by  the  state, 
would  cut  the  spinal  nerve  of  all  human  energy ;  every  person 
would  be  tended,  fed,  clothed,  and  his  whole  action  directed 
from  without.  The  result  would  be  a  community  of  overgrown 
babies ;  human  progress  would  cease,  mankind  would  degenerate, 
civilization  would  decay,  and  barbarism  would  be  the  ultimate 
result. 

True  ethics  must  embrace  both  the  egoistic  and  the  altruistic  in 
harmony  and  unity.  This  is  the  ethics  of  Christianity.  It  takes 
up  both  the  egoistic  and  the  altruistic  in  unity  under  the  law  of 
universal  love.  It  recognizes  self  and  all  other  persons  in  unity 
in  their  common  relations  to  God,  and  the  love  of  self  and  the 
love  of  others  in  unity  under  the  supreme  love  to  God.  God  in 
Christ,  in  his  person,  in  his  humiliation,  in  his  earthly  life  and 
death,  and  in  his  verbal  teaching,  reveals  the  law  of  love  in  its 
negative  or  obverse  significance  as  self-renouncing  or  self-sacri¬ 
ficing  ;  and  equally  in  its  positive  significance  as  the  universal  love 
in  the  exercise  of  which  man  realizes  his  union  with  God  and  his 
likeness  to  him,  and  thus  his  own  highest  dignity,  perfection,  and 
well-being.  Accordingly,  Christ  and  his  apostles  approach  sin¬ 
ners,  still  living  in  self-sufficiency,  self-will,  self-seeking,  and  self- 
glorifying,  appealing  to  the  egoistic  sentiments  which  dominate 
their  lives,  warning  them  of  ruin  and  woe  which  by  so  living  they 
are  bringing  on  themselves,  and  inviting  them  to  turn  to  God  and 
participate  in  the  glory  and  blessedness  attained  by  those  who 
serve  him  in  love.  Thus  they  seek  to  awaken  the  attention  of 
sinners,  to  arouse  their  moral  and  spiritual  natures,  and  so  to  lead 
them  to  see  their  need  of  Christ  and  of  the  Christian  life  of  love 
in  communion  with  God  and  to  accept  his  proffered  grace.  And 
after  the  man  has  put  his  trust  in  God  and  begun  the  life  of  self- 
renouncing  love,  Christ  and  the  apostles  point  out  to  him  the  per¬ 
fection,  blessedness,  and  glory  of  that  life  and  its  heavenly  issues 
in  the  life  everlasting.  They  themselves  dwell  on  this  glorious 
aspect  of  the  Christian  life  in  sustaining  them  under  the  difficul¬ 
ties,  conflicts,  and  suffering  of  their  lives.  These  are  always  legi¬ 
timate  motives.  A  rational  person  can  never  cease  to  be  interested 
in  his  own  welfare.  If  he  no  longer  hopes  to  attain  it,  he  sinks  in 
pessimism,  despair,  and  inaction,  and  decays  like  a  crushed  plant 
rotting  on  the  ground. 


422  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


The  Christian  religion  is  a  reasonable  service.  In  the  light  of 
reason,  the  Christian,  enlightened  by  the  revelation  which  God 
makes  of  himself  in  the  constitution  and  evolution  of  the  universe, 
in  the  constitution  and  history  of  man,  and  in  Christ  and  the  con¬ 
tinued  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  sees  that  the  universe  is  con¬ 
stituted  and  evolved  in  accordance  with  the  principles,  laws,  and 
ideals  of  reason  eternal  in  God,  the  absolute  Reason.  In  the  ex¬ 
ercise  of  free  will  he  consents  to  reason ;  he  chooses  God  revealed 
in  Christ  as  the  supreme  object  of  all  his  energies  receptive  and 
productive  in  loving  trust  and  service.  Therein  he  also  chooses 
his  neighbor  as  equally  with  himself  the  object  of  love,  of  trust 
and  service  in  good-will  regulated  in  righteousness.  In  this  su¬ 
preme  choice  in  harmony  with  reason  and  with  God’s  revelation 
of  himself,  the  Christian  takes  up  both  the  egoistic  and  the  altru¬ 
istic  sides  of  his  constitution  in  the  exercise  of  universal  love.  The 
man  would  be  unmanned  in  becoming  a  Christian  if  he  ceased  to 
seek  his  own  well-being  and  to  hope  to  attain  it,  and  could  no 
longer  rejoice  in  the  glory,  honor,  and  immortality  in  which  he 
participates  through  his  union  with  God,  in  his  being  like  him 
both  in  his  rational  and  spiritual  constitution  and  his  moral  char¬ 
acter,  and  in  being  forever  a  worker  with  God  in  progressively 
realizing  all  truth  and  right,  all  ideals  of  perfection  and  well-being 
possible  in  a  finite  universe  and  in  finite  rational  free  agents. 

Here,  however,  we  must  make  a  distinction.  The  life  of  love 
to  God  and  to  our  neighbor  as  ourselves  insures  the  highest  devel¬ 
opment,  perfection,  and  well-being ;  and  we  rightly  rejoice  in  it 
and  are  stimulated  by  it  in  the  Christian  life.  But  if  the  sup¬ 
posed  Christian  life  is  actuated  solely  by  the  desire  of  endless 
happiness,  it  is  no  longer  the  Christian  life  of  universal  love.  The 
egoistic  element  remains  dominant  and  the  love  and  its  trust  and 
service  are  supremely  devoted  to  self.  This  being  so,  the  hap¬ 
piness  and  glory  are  necessarily  missed,  because  these  are  simply 
the  glow  and  outshining  of  the  self-renouncing  love  to  God  and 
man,  and  because  the  universe  is  so  constituted  that  in  it  perfec¬ 
tion  and  well-being  are  possible  only  in  conformity  with  the  law 
of  universal  love.  In  this  universal  love  both  the  egoistic  and 
the  altruistic  elements  are  satisfied  and  unified. 

Competition  is  inevitable.  It  is  right  so  far  as  it  consists  in  a 
person’s  concentrating  his  thought  and  energy  on  his  work,  devis¬ 
ing  the  wisest  methods  of  doing  it  successfully  and  overcoming 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


423 


obstacles  and  opposition  to  its  legitimate  prosecution.  It  be¬ 
comes  wrong  and  pernicious  only  as  it  is  one-sided  in  the  spirit 
of  selfishness,  without  righteous  regard  to  the  rights  and  freedom 
of  others,  and  without  the  benevolent  disposition  to  render  them 
service.  Accordingly  there  is  no  contradiction,  but  a  far-reach¬ 
ing  significance,  in  Paul’s  seemingly  incompatible  directions, 
“  Bear  ye  one  another’s  burdens,”  “  Every  man  shall  bear  his 
own  burden  ”  (Gal.  vi.  2-5). 

The  objection  has  recently  been  urged  against  Christian  mis¬ 
sions  to  uncivilized  or  partially  civilized  peoples,  that  they 
attempt  to  force  on  them  an  education  and  civilization  which 
they  are  not  sufficiently  developed  to  bear ;  and  that  therefore 
the  missions  issue,  not  only  in  hindering  the  normal  progress  and 
development  of  the  people,  but  also  in  positive  injury.  One 
writer  says  that  he  has  known  cases  in  Egypt  in  which  teaching 
persons  to  read  has  issued,  through  over-straining  of  the  brain,  in 
making  them  imbeciles.  This  objection  is  answered  by  appealing 
to  innumerable  instances  in  the  history  of  missions  in  which  by 
missionary  efforts  individuals  and  tribes  have  been  greatly  devel¬ 
oped  and  advanced  toward  civilization.  At  most  the  objection 
is  not  against  missions  but  against  injudicious  methods  of  con¬ 
ducting  them.  Of  course,  we  cannot  present  Christ  and  his 
religion  to  a  child  in  the  same  way  in  which  we  would  present 
them  to  a  man,  nor  to  an  ignorant  person  as  we  would  to  one 
highly  educated.  The  difference  is  not  in  the  religion,  but  only 
in  the  way  of  presenting  it.  When  it  is  rightly  presented,  a  little 
child  or  an  uneducated  man  may  be  a  Christian,  and  if  he  is,  his 
education  and  development  will  be  quickened  and  guided 
thereby.  Nor  is  there  evidence  in  the  history  of  missions  that 
missionaries,  as  a  rule,  have  been  otherwise  than  judicious.  Even 
in  cases  in  which  missionaries  have  first  reduced  the  language  of 
a  savage  people  to  writing,  the  result  has  been  favorable  to  the 
education  and  development  of  the  people.  The  truth  underlying 
this  objection  is  that  a  people  can  be  developed  and  make  pro¬ 
gress  no  faster  than  the  individuals  composing  the  people  are 
educated  and  developed.  This  is  a  fundamental  principle  in  any 
true  science  of  sociology  and  human  progress.  It  is  an  individ¬ 
ualism  emphasized  also  in  Christianity.  The  kingdom  of  Christ 
can  be  advanced  only  as  individuals  are  born  anew  of  the  Spirit 
of  God,  and  developed  in  Christian  character  and  spiritual  power 


424  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

in  the  work  of  Christian  love.  The  Christian  religion  is  always 
the  same ;  but  the  method  of  presenting  it  and  the  extent  to 
which  the  ramified  application  of  its  principles  should  be  insisted 
on  must  be  adapted  to  the  capacity  and  comprehension  of  the 
persons  to  whom  it  is  presented.  Mr.  Huxley  says  truly,  “  the 
creation  of  a  new  habit  of  thought  is  a  greater  achievement  than 
any  material  invention.”  God  himself  acted  on  this  principle 
in  the  historical  revelation  of  himself  recorded  in  the  Bible, 
adapting  the  method  and  degree  of  his  revelation  of  himself  to 
the  existing  development  and  civilization  of  the  people.  This 
fact  is  recognized  by  Christ  (Matth.  xix.  7-9).  Imperfect  know¬ 
ledge  and  development,  lack  of  civilization  and  peculiarities  of 
civilization  must  be  taken  into  account  in  presenting  the  gospel  of 
Christ  to  any  person  or  people.  To  urge  on  a  people  principles 
of  character  and  conduct  and  features  of  civilization  which  they 
are  not  sufficiently  developed  to  appreciate  is  useless  and  may  be 
a  positive  hindrance  to  their  acceptance  of  Christianity  and  pro¬ 
gress  under  its  influence.  But  the  religion  of  Christ,  rightly  pre¬ 
sented  and  received  by  savages  or  by  men  of  any  degree  or  type 
of  civilization,  is  a  powerful  agency  in  their  development  and  pro¬ 
gress.  History  proves  that  since  the  coming  of  Christ  the  Chris¬ 
tian  religion  has  been  the  most  powerful  and  beneficent  agency  in 
promoting  the  true  progress  of  man.  As  Strauss  says,  “  Never 
can  any  religious  progress  hope  to  rival  the  gigantic  step  which 
humanity  made  through  the  revolution  effected  by  Jesus.”  1  Nor 
can  we  more  effectively  promote  the  progress  and  development 
of  the  inferior  races  of  men  than  by  proclaiming  to  them,  the 
gospel  of  Christ  in  ways  adapted  to  their  capacity  and  develop¬ 
ment  and  to  the  degree  and  peculiarities  of  their  civilization. 

The  truth  underlying  the  objection  confirms  the  doctrine  that 
we  rightly  appeal  to  the  egoistic  impulses,  inciting  individuals  to 
energetic  action  in  the  development  of  themselves  and  in  attain¬ 
ing  their  noblest  character,  their  greatest  power,  and  their  true 
well-being,  while  guiding  them  to  the  true  conception  of  their 
own  legitimate  work,  perfection,  and  well-being  and  the  true 
methods  of  attaining  true  education,  development  and  culture 
and  of  realizing  in  themselves  the  highest  ideal. 

Fourthly,  when  the  question  is  considered  by  reason  in  the  light 
of  truth  and  facts,  it  is  ascertained  that  this  special  service  to 

1  Life  of  Jesus,  vol.  ii.,  p.  49,  third  English  ed. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


425 


one’s  self  and  one’s  own,  vitalized  and  regulated  by  love  to  all,  is 
essential  to  the  well-being  of  society  and  to  the  most  effective 
work  in  accomplishing  the  ends  of  universal  love.  Mr.  Spencer, 
in  arguing  against  his  chimaera  that  Christianity  requires  an 
isolated  and  exclusive  altruism,  dwells  at  some  length  on  the  fact 
that  the  constitutional  love  of  one’s  self  and  one’s  own,  the  so- 
called  egoistic  effections,  have  been  powerful  factors  in  the  pro¬ 
gress  of  civilization.  This  is  true  and  is  a  valid  argument  against 
any  ethical  theory  of  isolated  and  exclusive  altruism,  if  such  an 
ethical  theory  was  ever  advocated.  But  it  is  no  argument  against 
Christianity ;  for  Christian  ethics  recognizes  this  fact  as  fully  as 
Mr.  Spencer  does,  and  does  not  require  an  isolated  and  exclusive 
altruism.  Mr.  Spencer  also  argues  that  an  exclusive  altruistic 
beneficence  is  hurtful.  He  says :  “  Every  one  can  remember 
cases  where  greediness  for  pleasures,  reluctance  to  take  trouble, 
and  utter  disregard  of  those  around  have  been  perpetually  in¬ 
creased  by  unmeasured  and  ever  ready  kindnesses,  while  the 
unwise  benefactor  has  shown  by  languid  movements  and  pale  face 
the  debility  consequent  on  disregard  of  self — the  outcome  of  the 
policy  being  the  destruction  of  the  worthy  in  making  worse  the 
unworthy.”  But  this  is  an  argument  merely  against  indiscrim¬ 
inate  and  unintelligent  almsgiving.  It  is  not  an  argument  even 
against  exclusive  altruism.  For  the  altruist  would  have  as  much 
reason  as  any  other  to  study  the  wisest  methods  of  helping  men, 
and  would  be  as  likely  as  any  other  to  ascertain  and  practise  the 
wisest  methods.  Much  less  is  it  an  argument  against  Christian 
ethics.  For  not  only  is  this  not  exclusive  altruism,  but  it  also 
recognizes  that  all  benevolence  is  required  by  law  and  therefore 
must  be  regulated  by  law.  All  beneficent  action,  therefore,  must 
be  done  in  righteousness,  —  it  must  be  in  accordance  with  truth 
and  reality,  it  must  be  regulated  by  justice  in  conformity  with 
law,  and  it  must  promote  the  perfection  and  well-being  of  man. 
All  which  Mr.  Spencer’s  contention  establishes  is,  what  is  little 
more  than  a  truism,  that  all  beneficent  action  must  be  wise  as 
well  as  benevolent ;  the  beneficent  person  must  take  care  that  his 
beneficence  is  accordant  with  truth  and  right,  and  will  really  pro¬ 
mote  and  not  hinder  the  well-being  of  the  person  whom  he  would 
aid,  and  will  thereby  promote  the  welfare  of  mankind.  And  no 
system  of  ethics  recognizes  this  more  clearly  than  Christian 
ethics. 


426  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


Every  one,  therefore,  owes  special  duties  to  himself  which  he 
does  not  owe  to  another.  For  himself  he  forms  his  own  charac¬ 
ter,  right  or  wrong,  and  shapes  his  own  destiny  for  good  or  evil. 
“  If  thou  be  wise,  thou  shalt  be  wise  for  thyself,  but  if  thou  scorn- 
est  thou  alone  shalt  bear  it  ”  (Prov.  ix.  12).  Others  may  counsel 
and  help,  but  no  one  can  enter  into  another’s  personality  to  decide 
or  act  for  him.  No  man  can  share  his  responsibility  with  another. 
Every  one  is  under  obligation  to  care  for  his  own  life  and  health, 
to  educate  and  develop  himself  to  his  highest  perfection  and  to 
make  the  most  of  his  own  powers  and  opportunities.  And  for 
similar  reasons  every  one  owes  special  service  to  his  own  family 
and  friends,  to  his  own  town  and  country,  to  his  own  church,  and 
any  association  or  community  of  which  he  is  a  member. 

2.  These  special  duties  to  one’s  self  are  acts  of  trust  and 
service  expressing  love  to  one’s  self  as  to  one’s  neighbor  in  its 
two  aspects  of  good-will  regulated  by  righteousness.  There  is  no 
difficulty  in  the  conception  that  this  is  the  duty  owed  to  one’s 
family,  friends,  or  country.  But  it  is  not  commonly  seen  so 
clearly  that  this  description  is  applicable  to  duty  to  one’s  self. 
It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to  make  some  explanations  removing 
the  confusion  of  thought  from  which  this  difficulty  springs. 

Self-reliance  or  trust  in  one’s  self  is  essential  both  to  complete 
self-development  and  to  the  highest  achievement.  The  true  aim 
of  every  educator  is  to  make  himself  needless  to  the  pupil.  Right 
education  consists  in  informing,  training,  and  developing  the 
pupil  to  self-mastery,  to  the  command  of  his  powers  and  re¬ 
sources.  Self-reliance  is  essential  also  to  courage  and  enterprise  ; 
it  prompts  to  attempt  great  things  and  to  expect  great  things. 
Trust  in  self  becomes  sinful  self-sufficiency  only  when  one  chooses 
self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust,  and  so  renounces  God  and  dis¬ 
owns  dependence  on  him.  But  trust  in  God  does  not  annul 
trust  in  self.  In  the  consciousness  of  his  own  rational  free  per¬ 
sonality  the  person  by  his  own  free  choice  puts  his  trust  in  God. 
But  in  so  trusting  God  he  does  not  cease  to  be  a  person  rational 
and  free,  nor  cease  to  act  in  the  exercise  of  those  high  powers  of 
personality  with  which  he  is  endowed.  He  has  only  returned  to 
his  normal  condition  of  union  with  God,  so  that  he  can  avail 
himself  of  all  the  resources  of  his  spiritual  environment  and  may 
use  his  own  powers  inspired  and  quickened  by  the  divine  influ¬ 
ences  upon  and  in  him.  Then  he  relies  on  himself  as  in  his 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


427 


normal  union  with  God  energizing  in  him  and  says  with  Paul,  “  I 
can  do  all  things  through  Christ  who  strengthened!  me.”  God 
is  the  environment  of  his  spirit.  His  spiritual  power,  available  in 
its  highest  energy  only  in  harmony  and  union  with  God,  is  analo¬ 
gous  to  his  physical  power,  available  only  in  harmony  with  his 
physical  environment,  only  as  the  sunshine,  air,  electricity,  and 
all  physical  forces  act  in  and  on  him,  and  as  he  discovers  ways  in 
which  he  secures  the  aid  of  these  mighty  forces  in  doing  his  work. 
Yet  it  is  he  who  acts  with  these  forces  on  which  he  is  dependent 
and  effects  results  which  they  would  never  have  effected  without 
his  agency. 

It  is  also  a  man’s  duty  to  render  service  to  himself;  not  as  the 
supreme  object  of  service,  but  in  his  real  place  in  the  moral  sys¬ 
tem  and  in  his  real  relations  to  men  in  that  system  under  the 
government  of  God. 

This  must  be  a  service  of  benevolence  or  good-will.  An  ob¬ 
jection  is  sometimes  urged  that  a  person  cannot  be  benevolent  to 
himself  but  only  to  another.  But  benevolence  is  the  choice  of 
good  or  well-being  for  a  person.  One  certainly  can  choose  good 
or  well-being  for  himself ;  and  the  choice  is  willing  good,  benev¬ 
olence,  or  good-will  to  himself.  The  objection  is  a  form  of  a 
wider  error  in  ethical  teaching,  that  there  can  be  no  duty  or 
moral  action  of  any  kind  except  toward  another.  But  a  rational 
being  is  by  virtue  of  his  rationality  a  law  to  himself.  Were  there 
but  one  rational  being  in  existence  he  would,  nevertheless,  know 
that  he  ought  to  act  rationally,  that  is,  to  obey  reason.  Man  as 
rational  is  himself  an  object  to  his  own  consciousness,  to  his  own 
thought,  and  to  his  own  voluntary  action.  He  may,  also,  be  an 
object  to  his  own  love,  alike  in  its  aspects  of  good-will  and  of 
righteousness. 

A  person  owes  to  himself,  also,  all  the  duties  of  righteousness. 
His  good-will  to  himself  must  be  regulated  by  righteousness,  in 
its  three  forms. 

The  love  of  the  truth  concerning  himself  will  appear  as  candor 
in  willingness  to  know  himself  as  he  really  is,  unbiased  by  any 
opposition  of  will  through  self-esteem  or  self-interest ;  and  equally 
unbiased  by  false  humility,  as  if  it  were  a  virtue  for  a  person 
always  to  depreciate  himself,  and  a  sin  to  appreciate  any  excel¬ 
lence  of  character,  acquisitions,  or  ability,  or  to  esteem  himself 
better  than  the  vilest.  The  love  of  the  truth  invites  one  to  attain 


428  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


a  true  knowledge  of  himself.  This  is  accordant  with  the  maxim, 
“  Know  thyself,”  the  inscription  at  the  oracle  of  Delphi,  with 
which  the  god  greeted  every  one  who  came  to  consult  the  oracle  ; 
and  to  which  the  ancients  attached  so  much  importance  that  they 
believed  it  came  down  from  heaven  as  a  divine  revelation.  And 
so  Paul  commands :  “  For  I  say,  through  the  grace  that  was 
given  to  me,  to  every  man  that  is  among  you,  not  to  think  of 
himself  more  highly  than  he  ought  to  think,  but  to  think  soberly, 
according  as  God  hath  dealt  to  each  a  measure  of  faith  55  (Rom. 
xii.  3).  Love  of  the  truth  concerning  one’s  self  when  known 
appears  in  the  consent  of  the  will  to  it,  the  resolute  acceptance  of 
the  facts  of  one’s  own  character,  powers,  and  condition,  the 
resolute  rejection  of  insincerity  with  one’s  self,  the  resolute 
shutting  out  of  all  self-deception. 

The  second  aspect  of  righteousness  is  justice,  the  consent  of 
the  will  to  the  law.  In  its  first  form  as  the  consent  of  the  will  to 
the  authority  of  the  law,  justice  to  self  is  the  consent  of  the  will 
to  the  dictates  of  one’s  own  reason  and  conscience  as  authorita¬ 
tive.  It  is  the  consent  of  the  will  to  one’s  matured  conclusions 
as  to  what  is  right.  The  man  has  the  courage  of  his  convictions, 
to  proclaim  them,  to  live  by  them,  —  if  necessary,  to  die  for  them. 
It  is  a  person’s  loyalty  to  his  reason  and  conscience.  It  is  self- 
respect  which  forbids  a  person  to  do  anything  dishonorable,  any¬ 
thing  unworthy  of  himself  as  a  rational  and  free  person,  as  a 
spiritual  being  in  a  spiritual  environment,  as  redeemed  from  sin 
through  God’s  love  in  Christ,  made  a  child  of  God,  capable  of 
realizing  the  ideal  of  humanity  and  likeness  to  God  as  both  are 
revealed  in  Christ,  and  participating  in  eternal  life.  Honesty  is 
the  exact  rendering  to  all  their  dues.  Honor  is  honesty  inspired 
and  ennobled  by  self-respect.  Self-respect  and  the  sense  of  what 
is  honorable  and  of  what  is  shameful  never  attain  their  full  signifi¬ 
cance  except  as  one  recognizes  his  likeness  and  relations  to  God 
in  the  moral  system  and  under  his  law  of  love,  and  by  these 
measures  his  own  dignity  and  worth  and  what  pursuits,  conduct, 
and  character  are  worthy  of  him  and  honorable  to  him.  So  Paul 
presents  the  dignity  and  nobleness  of  Christian  character :  See 
that  ye  walk  worthy  of  your  high  calling  ;  see  that  ye  walk  worthy 
of  God,  who  hath  called  you  into  his  kingdom  and  glory.  Justice 
in  its  second  form  is  the  consent  of  the  will  to  the  requirements 
of  the  law.  Justice  to  others,  in  this  form,  is  rendering  to  them 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


429 


their  dues,  that  is,  doing  all  our  duties  to  them.  Justice,  in  this 
form,  to  ourselves  is  the  assertion  and  maintenance  of  our  rights 
against  the  encroachments  of  others.  There  is  also  a  true  sense 
in  which  a  person  may  violate  his  own  rights,  and  hence  ought  to 
assert  and  maintain  his  rights  against  himself.  Every  person  has 
the  right  to  live  a  rational  and  spiritual  life,  to  develop  the 
spiritual  side  of  his  being  to  its  perfection,  to  possess  the  knowl¬ 
edge,  perfection,  and  power,  the  privileges  and  blessedness  of 
the  disciples  of  Christ  and  the  children  of  God.  One  does  him¬ 
self  an  immeasurable  wrong  when  he  uses  the  free  will,  which 
makes  him  capable  of  serving  God,  only  in  satisfying  the  desires 
of  the  flesh  and  in  the  service  of  self,  thus  robbing  himself  of  the 
glory  of  the  children  of  God  and  shutting  himself  up  to  sensual, 
earthly,  and  satanic  interests  and  pleasures,  “  the  husks  which  the 
swine  did  eat.”  Hence  the  life  of  sin  is  properly  called  a  bondage 
and  slavery,  and  men  are  called  on  to  assert  their  rights  as  spiritual 
beings  and  by  coming  to  Christ  to  attain  the  freedom  wherewith 
Christ  maketh  free.  Justice  to  self,  in  its  third  form  as  the  con¬ 
sent  of  the  will  to  the  penalty  of  the  law,  appears  in  the  sinner’s 
recognition  of  his  own  ill-desert  and  submission  to  his  condemna¬ 
tion  as  just,  and  also  in  his  trust  in  Christ,  who  by  his  work  of 
redeeming  love  in  its  atoning  significance  has  fully  asserted  and 
maintained  the  authority,  immutability,  and  inviolability  of  God’s 
law  in  the  forgiveness  of  sin,  —  “  that  thou  mightest  be  justified 
when  thou  speakest  and  be  clear  when  thou  judgest  ”  (Psalm  li.  4) . 

Righteousness  toward  self,  in  its  third  aspect  as  complacency 
in  excellence  and  perfection,  will  appear,  so  far  as  one  is  con¬ 
scious  of  sin  or  imperfection,  in  displacency  towards  himself  and 
in  aspiration  to  attain  perfection.  It  prompts  to  self-culture. 
As  Christianity  is  comprehensive  of  all  truth  really  known  from 
whatever  source,  as  bearing  on  and  enlarging  man’s  knowledge 
of  God  and  of  man’s  relations  to  him,  so  it  is  comprehensive  of 
all  the  virtues  as  included  or  implied  in  love  to  God  and  man 
and  essential  to  the  complete  exercise  of  Christian  trust  and 
service.  This  comprehensiveness  of  Christianity  is  declared  by 
Paul :  “  Whatsoever  things  are  true,  whatsoever  things  are  honor¬ 
able,  whatsoever  things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are  pure,  what¬ 
soever  things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of  good  report ; 
if  there  be  any  virtue  and  if  there  be  any  praise,  think  on  these 
things”  (Phil.  iv.  8),  that  is,  reckon  them  in  as  belonging  to 


430  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


Christian  character.  And  Peter  recognizes  the  same  comprehen¬ 
siveness  :  “  Giving  all  diligence  add  to  your  faith  virtue  ;  and  to 
virtue,  knowledge,  and  to  knowledge,  self-control ;  and  to  self- 
control,  patience  ;  and  to  patience,  godliness ;  and  to  godliness, 
brotherly  kindness ;  and  to  brotherly  kindness,  (universal)  love  ” 
(2  Peter,  i.  5-7).  Complacency  towards  self  is  also  compla¬ 
cency  in  one’s  own  character  so  far  as  conformed  to  the  law  of 
love,  and  in  every  worthy  attainment,  saying,  with  Paul,  “  By  the 
grace  of  God  I  am  what  I  am.”  We  may  thank  God  that  we 
are  not  as  some  others  are,  drunkards,  murderers,  swindlers, 
atheists,  idolaters,  ignorant,  provided  the  excellence  for  which  we 
give  thanks  is  real  and  we  feel  our  indebtedness  to  God  for  it,  — 
which  indeed  is  implied  in  the  very  act  of  giving  God  thanks  for 
it,  —  and  recognize  our  superiority  in  love  for  those  with  whom 
we  contrast  ourselves,  and  compassionately  endeavor,  as  much  as 
in  us  is,  to  help  them  to  attain  the  same  excellence. 

3.  The  particular  service  of  duty  due  to  one’s  self  in  any  given 
case  must  be  determined  by  every  one  according  to  his  own  best 
judgment  in  view  of  his  own  peculiar  capacity  and  opportunity 
and  his  actual  relation  to  others  in  the  moral  system. 

A  person  is  under  obligation,  to  the  extent  of  ability  and 
opportunity,  to  attain  his  own  highest  education,  culture,  and 
development.  He  is  bound,  so  far  as  possible,  to  make  the  most 
of  himself,  to  develop  all  his  powers  and  to  furnish  himself  with 
knowledge  and  instruments  and  resources  for  work.  But  while 
personal  education,  culture,  and  development  are  a  worthy  end 
to  be  diligently  sought,  this  must  not  be  made  the  ultimate  and 
supreme  end.  One  must  seek  it  for  another  end  beyond  himself, 
to  enable  himself  to  accomplish  more  for  the  advancement  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  to  promote  the  progress  and  well-being  of 
man.  At  a  public  dinner  in  New  York  in  1882,  Herbert  Spencer 
criticised  a  public  address  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  to  which  he  once 
listened,  as  being  erroneous,  because  through  it  “  ran  the  tacit 
assumption  that  life  is  for  working  and  learning.”  And  he  added, 
“  I  should  have  liked  to  contend  that  life  is  not  for  learning,  nor 
is  life  for  working,  but  learning  and  working  are  for  life.”  But 
neither  of  these  expresses  the  Christian  conception,  which  is 
that  neither  the  working,  learning,  nor  living  of  the  person  him¬ 
self  is  the  ultimate  and  supreme  end.  Each  reaches  toward  an 
end  beyond  itself,  and  beyond  the  person  himself  to  the  progress 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


431 


and  well-being  of  man.  A  person  is  to  develop  and  cultivate 
himself  to  the  utmost  that  he  may  be  able  to  render  more  effec¬ 
tive  service  to  man  in  advancing  the  kingdom  of  God.  As  a 
benevolent  person  gives  a  poor  boy  an  education  in  order  that 
he  may  be  a  useful  man,  every  one,  to  the  extent  of  his  ability 
and  opportunity,  must  educate  himself  in  order  that  he  himself 
may  be  useful  in  rendering  service  to  man,  and  therein  may  serve 
God  and  win  his  co-operation  and  blessing. 

And  it  is  only  thus  that  the  true  and  highest  development  and 
culture  of  the  person  himself  can  be  attained.  To  attain  this  the 
action  of  the  will  in  serving  man,  the  drawing  out  of  the  desires 
and  affections  which  interest  one  in  humanity,  the  development 
of  the  spiritual  side  of  our  being  which  connects  us  with  God 
and  the  moral  system,  and  of  which  the  normal  action  is  love  to 
God  and  man,  are  as  indispensable  as  the  training  of  the  intel¬ 
lect  and  the  acquisition  of  knowledge.  Culture  without  the  love 
which  prompts  to  the  service  of  God  and  man  is  one-sided.  In 
such  culture  thought  issues  in  empty  speculation  and  logomachy, 
and  art  issues  in  dilettanteism,  fastidiousness,  and  hypercriticism. 
It  develops  self-sufficiency  and  exclusiveness.  Emerson  said  that 
if,  riding  in  a  stage-coach  in  Texas,  he  should  see  a  man  on  the 
opposite  side  reading  Horace,  he  should  want  to  hug  him.  But 
that  is  a  bond  of  fellowship  which  excludes  almost  all  of  mankind. 
All  education,  culture,  and  development,  which  make  these  the 
ultimate  and  supreme  end  and  do  not  quicken  the  love  which 
prompts  to  devote  all  the  powers  and  acquisitions  to  the  service 
of  man,  fail  to  be  true  education,  culture,  and  development. 
And  this  is  only  an  example  of  the  broader  law  that  whoever 
makes  his  own  personal  good  the  supreme  and  exclusive  end 
misses  the  good.  This  has  been  well  expressed  by  Cardinal 
Newman  :  “  All  virtue  and  goodness  tend  to  make  men  power¬ 
ful  in  this  world ;  but  they  who  aim  at  the  power  have  not 
the  virtue.  Again  :  Virtue  is  its  own  reward  and  brings  with  it 
the  truest  and  highest  pleasures ;  but  they  who  cultivate  it  for  the 
pleasure’s  sake  are  selfish,  not  religious ;  and  will  never  gain  the 
pleasure  because  they  can  never  have  the  virtue.”  1 

1  The  moral  influence  of  culture  divorced  from  the  service  of  man,  and 
the  pessimism  involved  in  it,  is  exemplified  in  Mr.  Ruskin’s  description  of 
himself  in  the  “  Contemporary  Review  ”  :  “I  have  bought  for  my  own  exclu¬ 
sive  gratification  the  cottage  in  which  I  am  writing,  near  the  lake-beach  on 
which  I  used  to  play  when  I  was  seven  years  old.  Were  I  a  public-spirited 


432  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


A  person  is  also  under  obligation  to  support  himself  and  his 
own  family. 

Here  let  it  be  remembered  that  secular  business  is  not  neces¬ 
sarily  worldliness,  and  that  a  man  is  not  necessarily  selfish  or 
covetous  in  its  prosecution.  Nor  is  he  proved  to  be  covetous 
by  any  amount  of  diligence  and  earnestness  in  its  prosecution. 
For  his  business  is  his  life  work  and  such  concentration  of  energy 
is  simply  a  condition  of  success  in  any  line  of  action.  Money  is 
the  representative  of  value  and  is  indispensable  in  all  enterprise 
whether  secular  or  religious.  It  is  not  money,  but  the  love  of 
money,  which  Paul  says  is  a  root  of  all  sorts  of  evil.  The  mere 
fact,  therefore,  that  a  man  is  diligent  and  successful  in  gaining 
money  is  no  proof  that  he  is  covetous,  worldly,  or  selfish.  He 
is  so  only  if  he  is  gaining  money  exclusively  for  himself.  Then 
he  is  like  a  steam-engine  driven  night  and  day  only  to  produce 
fuel  to  feed  its  own  fire. 

And  what  a  person  expends  on  himself  and  his  own  family  is 
not  necessarily  a  selfish  expenditure.  Every  such  expenditure 
may  be  made  in  pure  Christian  benevolence.  It  is  a  real  ser¬ 
vice  to  society  if  only  that  it  relieves  the  public  from  the  expense 
of  supporting  them.  And  what  is  a  more  effective  service  to 
society  than  to  make  a  pure  and  happy  Christian  home,  one  of 
the  many  homes  which  make  a  pure  and  happy  Christian  people, 
and  to  train  up  children  for  Christian  service?  We  must  rid  our¬ 
selves  of  the  pernicious  error  that  all  which  one  spends  on  him¬ 
self  and  his  own  family  is  spent  in  selfishness,  and  that  money  is 
used  in  benevolence  only  when  it  is  given  directly  to  the  poor 
or  to  some  missionary  or  reformatory  association.2 

It  follows  that  the  law  of  Christian  service  cannot  be  satisfied 
merely  with  setting  apart  to  be  given  away  in  charity  one- tenth 

scientific  person  or  a  benevolently  pious  one,  I  should  doubtless  instead  be 
surveying  the  geographical  relations  of  the  mountains  of  the  moon,  or  trans¬ 
lating  the  Athanasian  creed  into  Tartar-Chinese.  But  I  hate  the  very  name 
of  the  public,  and  labor  under  no  oppressive  anxiety  either  for  the  advance¬ 
ment  of  science  or  the  salvation  of  mankind.  I,  therefore,  prefer  amus¬ 
ing  myself  with  the  lake-pebbles,  of  which  I  know  nothing  but  that  they 
are  pretty,  and  conversing  with  people  whom  I  can  understand  without 
pains,  and  who,  so  far  from  needing  to  be  converted,  seem  to  me  on  the 
whole  better  than  myself.” 

2  I  have  known  persons  who  insisted  that  money  paid  for  the  support 
of  their  own  pastor  and  Sunday-school  was  merely  a  selfish  use  of  money. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


433 


or  any  fixed  proportion  of  the  income.  The  Christian  law  of 
stewardship  is  that  all  our  powers,  property,  and  income  are 
intrusted  to  us  to  be  used  for  God  in  the  Christian  service 
of  man.  The  whole  business  is  to  be  prosecuted,  all  work  to 
be  done,  all  the  income  used,  in  the  Christian  service  of  man. 
Hence  the  definite  proportion  to  be  given  away  in  charity  cannot 
be  prescribed  for  all ;  for  a  poor  man  with  a  large  family  and 
small  earnings  cannot  in  equity  be  required  to  give  as  large 
a  proportion  of  his  income  as  a  rich  man  whose  income  largely 
exceeds  his  personal  and  family  expenses  even  when  living  luxu¬ 
riously.  Every  Christian  must  accept  the  Christian  law  of 
stewardship  and  in  love  to  God  as  supreme  and  to  his  neighbor 
as  himself  determine  in  every  question  of  investment,  expenditure, 
and  charitable  gift  how  he  can  use  the  powers  and  possessions 
which  God  has  given  so  as  most  effectively  to  advance  his  king¬ 
dom  and  promote  the  well-being  of  man. 

Here  the  question  arises,  how  far  one  is  justified  in  expending 
money  in  personal  enjoyment,  in  creating  and  gratifying  the 
tastes  and  desires  arising  from  culture  and  refinement,  in  satisfy¬ 
ing  a  taste  for  the  beautiful,  or  in  supplying  any  want  beyond  the 
necessaries  of  life.  The  mass  of  human  misery  and  need  sur¬ 
passes  all  individual  resources  for  its  relief.  When  one  thinks 
of  this  and  remembers  that  he  is  debtor  to  all  men  to  help  them 
as  much  as  in  him  is,  he  may  naturally  think  that  he  ought 
to  divest  himself  of  all  beyond  the  simplest  supply  of  his  bare 
necessities  and  devote  all  the  rest  of  his  income  in  charity 
to  the  relief  of  others.  But,  in  accordance  with  the  principles 
already  established,  there  is  a  question  back  of  this ;  the  question 
whether  this  would  be  the  most  effective  way  of  promoting 
the  progress  and  well-being  of  man.  Canon  Farrar  thinks  it 
desirable  that  there  should  be  in  the  church  an  order  of  persons 
who,  under  vows  of  celibacy  and  poverty,  should  devote  them¬ 
selves  wholly  to  the  work  of  carrying  the  gospel  to  men  and 
ministering  to  their  spiritual  needs.  And  it  has  been  suggested 
that  men  and  women  who  have  taken  on  themselves  such  obliga¬ 
tions  would  accomplish  more  in  foreign  missions  than  other 
missionaries,  because  they  would  be  more  in  accord  with  the 
idea  of  a  religious  life  very  commonly  held.  It  is  conceivable 
that  such  persons  might  do  good  in  peculiar  circumstances  and 
cases.  But  it  would  be  at  the  risk  of  perpetuating  and  intensify- 
VOL.  ii.  —  28 


434  THE  LORD  of  all  in  moral  government 


mg  the  false  notion  of  religion,  as  a  life  of  asceticism,  beggary, 
meditation,  and  separation  from  the  humanities  of  life,  as  incul¬ 
cated,  for  example,  by  Buddhism,  but  not  in  harmony  with  the 
teaching  of  Christ,  who  came  eating  and  drinking,  attracting 
attention  because  he  did  not  teach  his  disciples  to  fast,  and 
always  mingling  with  men  in  kindly  intercourse.  And  in  Chris¬ 
tendom  it  would  tend  to  perpetuate  and  intensify  the  false 
conception  of  the  religious  and  secular  as  separate  and  antagonis¬ 
tic  which  is  already  a  great  hindrance  to  the  progress  of  Christ’s 
kingdom.  It  is  not  necessary,  however,  to  deny  that  God 
may  call  and  inwardly  move  individuals  to  this  asceticism  for 
the  better  doing  of  specific  work ;  for  there  are  in  his  kingdom 
a  great  diversity  of  lines  of  Christian  work  and  need  for  a  great 
diversity  of  gifts.  But  it  is  evident  that  the  limitation  of  expendi¬ 
ture  to  the  bare  necessaries  of  life  can  never  be  the  rule  for 
all  Christians.  The  development  of  man  in  the  progress  of 
civilization  awakens  to  action  the  slumbering  powers  and  suscep¬ 
tibilities  of  his  many-sided  being  and  so  multiplies  his  conscious 
wants.  If  men  must  cease  to  satisfy  these  wants,  immense 
numbers  of  persons  engaged  in  supplying  these  wants  would 
be  thrown  out  of  employment,  machinery  would  lie  idle,  and 
men  would  relapse  into  barbarism. 

It  must  also  be  considered  that  the  beautiful  has  a  place 
in  the  moral  and  spiritual  system  as  real  and  legitimate  as  the 
true  and  the  right.  It  is  the  ideally  perfect,  when  manifested  in 
any  object  of  perception  or  thought,  which  awakens  the  emotion 
of  beauty.  But  that  only  is  perfect  which  is  the  expression  of 
truth  in  accordance  with  law.  Thus  truth,  duty,  and  beauty 
are  but  different  aspects  of  reality  as  known  in  the  light  of  reason. 
Beauty  is  non-didactic  and  non-moral,  because  it  is  an  aspect 
of  reality  different  from  the  true  and  the  right  as  reason  sees  it. 
But  it  can  never  be  untrue  or  immoral,  because  these  would 
imply  imperfection.  Sidney  Lanier,  in  his  “  English  Novel,” 
says  :  “  From  time  immemorial  wherever  there  is  contest  between 
artistic  and  moral  beauty,  unless  the  moral  side  prevail  all  is 
lost.  Let  any  sculptor  hew  us  out  the  most  ravishing  combina¬ 
tion  of  tender  curves  and  spheric  softness  that  ever  stood  for 
woman ;  yet  if  the  lip  have  a  certain  fulness  that  hints  of 
the  flesh,  if  the  brow  be  insincere,  if  in  the  minutest  particular 
the  physical  beauty  suggests  moral  ugliness,  that  sculptor,  unless 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


435 


he  be  portraying  a  moral  ugliness  for  a  moral  purpose,  may 
as  well  give  over  his  marble  for  paving  stones.  Time,  whose 
judgments  are  inexorably  moral,  will  not  accept  his  work.  For 
indeed  we  may  say  that  he  who  has  not  yet  perceived  how 
artistic  beauty  and  moral  beauty  are  convergent  lines  which 
run  back  into  a  common  ideal  origin,  and  who  therefore  is 
not  afire  with  moral  beauty  just  as  with  artistic  beauty,  —  that 
he,  in  short,  who  has  not  come  to  that  stage  of  quiet  and  eternal 
frenzy  in  which  the  beauty  of  holiness  and  the  holiness  of  beauty 
mean  one  thing,  burn  as  one  fire,  shine  as  one  light  within  him, 
he  is  not  yet  the  great  artist.”  In  direct  contradiction  to  this 
great  principle  is  the  realism  of  much  recent  fiction  and  poetry, 
which  aims  simply  to  describe  whatever  is  real  in  human  char¬ 
acter,  action  or  condition,  without  attempting  to  present  any 
ideal,  either  aesthetic  or  moral,  and  justifies  itself  in  presenting 
the  most  seductive  as  well  as  the  most  horrible  pictures  of  vice, 
because  such  vice  is  real  and  such  crimes  are  really  committed. 
Because  the  highest  literature  and  art  are  inseparable  from 
moral  ideals,  an  age  that  cherishes  the  aesthetic  without  the 
moral  is  inevitably  an  age  of  weakness  and  decay. 

From  this  inseparable  connection  of  the  moral  ideal  with 
the  artistic  it  follows  that  money  spent  in  creating  the  beautiful, 
in  surrounding  one’s  self  with  beautiful  objects  and  combinations, 
or  in  bringing  beautiful  objects  to  the  view  of  others  may 
be  doing  Christian  service  to  man  in  the  promotion  of  civiliza¬ 
tion  and  culture. 

Christian  civilization,  when  completely  realized,  will  combine 
the  intellectual,  the  moral,  and  the  aesthetic,  the  true,  the  right, 
and  the  perfect,  in  unity  in  the  religious,  and  thus  will  realize 
the  true  good ;  thus  it  will  extrude  the  greed  of  personal  gain, 
which  is  the  rust  corroding  our  present  civilization,  and  all 
selfish  indolence,  luxury,  ostentation,  and  sensual  indulgence. 
But  this  unity  is  not  yet  fully  attained. 

When  the  intellectual  is  isolated  and  dominant  it  tends  to 
speculative  thought  and  to  logomachy  abstracted  from  the  in¬ 
terests  of  man.  If  the  intellectual  activity  thus  is  occupied  with 
physical  science  it  is  liable  to  sink  into  materialism. 

If  the  aesthetic  predominates  isolated  from  truth  and  right, 
civilization  is  marked  by  weakness,  superficiality,  and  decay. 

When  the  sense  of  moral  obligation  and  duty  enforced  by  the 


436  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

sanctions  of  God’s  law  predominates,  duty  and  accountability 
occupy  the  thought ;  every  act  is  done  in  the  sense  of  responsi¬ 
bility  under  law,  awaiting  the  dread  awards  of  God’s  judgment. 
This  develops  intense  earnestness  of  purpose,  contempt  for  idle¬ 
ness,  self-indulgence,  and  luxury,  scrupulous  regard  for  law, 
and  consecration  to  high  moral  ends.  It  leads  to  efforts  to 
reform  abuses,  to  propagate  good  morals,  and  to  realize  moral 
ideals.  It  considers  all  human  interests  in  relation  to  right  and 
wrong ;  it  enforces  duty ;  it  demands  and  maintains  rights ;  it 
resists  injustice  and  oppression ;  it  expects  progress ;  it  looks  on 
history  as  a  grand  panorama  in  which  right  struggles  with  wrong 
and  moral  ideals  advance  with  ever  greatening  glory  to  their  full 
realization.  This  is  impossible  in  a  predominantly  aesthetic 
civilization.  To  such  a  civilization  the  moral  earnestness  of  the 
Hebrew  and  Christian  scriptures,  of  the  Christian  apostles  and 
martyrs,  of  the  reformers  and  the  Puritans,  would  be  incompre¬ 
hensible.  Accordingly,  when  preached  in  the  gospel  of  Christ, 
it  was  to  the  Greeks  foolishness. 

But  this  type  of  character,  in  which  the  moral  intensified  by 
religion  predominates,  has  often  been  narrow  and  one-sided,  has 
taken  on  sometimes  a  certain  moroseness  and  fierceness,  has  been 
intolerant  and  persecuting.  These  were  exemplified  in  the  fanat¬ 
icism  of  Mohammedanism,  propagating  itself  by  the  sword,  in  the 
Crusades,  and  the  Inquisition.  It  also  has  taken  on  a  peculiar 
gloom,  —  law  supreme,  universal,  inexorable,  law  broken  by  all, 
penalty  terrible  and  inevitable  glooming  and  threatening  over  the 
world.  Beneath  its  terror  pleasure  is  an  impertinence,  beauty  but 
vanity,  the  interests  of  this  temporal  life  trivial,  business  a  profane 
intrusion  on  sacred  duties,  the  one  great  concern  is  preparation 
for  death;  “  other-worldliness  ”  is  the  necessary  alternative  to 
worldliness.  The  sunny  cheerfulness  of  life  fades  beneath  the 
intensity  of  the  sense  of  duty  and  responsibility  ;  weariness  of  life 
and  of  the  world  falls  on  the  soul,  and  asceticism  drives  men  to 
deserts  and  monasteries  for  the  mortification  of  the  flesh.  And 
thus  it  comes  to  the  extreme  that  its  iconoclasm  is  directed 
against  the  pleasurable  and  the  beautiful  because  they  are  such, 
and  so  by  their  very  presence  prove  themselves  earthly  and 
idolatrous. 

This  one-sidedness  appears  in  another  form.  Because  men 
are  sinners  and  must  be  born  anew  under  the  influence  of 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


437 


the  Spirit  of  God,  Christians  often  think  that  all  Christian  effort 
must  be  concentrated  on  the  conversion  of  sinners,  and  so  over¬ 
look  the  great  interests  of  human  progress  and  improvement ; 
not  undervaluing  them,  but  suspending  effort  for  those  ends, 
because  the  first  and  paramount  necessity  is  the  saving  of  souls. 
In  this  way  the  idea  of  conversion  is  itself  narrowed.  It  is  no 
longer  the  beginning  of  a  new  life  of  love  under  the  quickening 
of  the  Spirit,  but  an  experience  in  which  one  obtains  a  hope 
that  his  peace  is  made  with  God ;  and  thereafter  a  large  part  of 
his  experience  is  his  rejoicing  that  he  at  least  is  saved  from  hell 
and  is  safe  in  the  fold  of  Christ.  But  the  salvation  of  the  soul  is 
salvation  from  sin.  The  ruin  of  the  soul  is  its  own  selfishness. 
It  is  withering,  shriveling,  wasting  in  the  narrowness  of  selfish 
interest  and  the  consumption  by  selfish  lusts.  Its  salvation  is  its 
renovation  to  the  life  of  faith  and  universal  love,  faith  in  God  in 
Christ,  the  inspiration  of  a  new  life  like  Christ’s,  love  to  God  and 
man  glowing  as  enthusiasm  for  humanity  and  zeal  to  promote  all 
its  interests.  And  Christian  interest  in  the  progress  of  humanity, 
in  the  highest  human  culture,  in  all  which  pertains  to  human  wel¬ 
fare,  is  itself  an  indispensable  recommendation  of  Christianity, 
and  a  most  effective  influence  in  persuading  men  to  become 
Christians.  Men  are  repelled  from  Christianity  when  professed 
Christians  turn  away  with  indifference  from  the  great  practical 
interests  of  life  and  civilization.  And  since  Christianity  aims  to 
transform  human  society  into  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  Christians 
have  no  right  to  postpone  efforts  for  the  full  development  of 
Christian  character  and  the  christianizing  of  civilization  within 
the  community  in  which  they  have  influence,  while  waiting  to 
convert  individuals  in  that  community,  and  to  extend  the  super¬ 
ficial  breadth  of  Christianity  over  all  the  earth.  It  is  essential  to 
the  continued  existence,  power,  and  growth  of  Christianity  that  it 
prove  itself  to  be  the  religion  of  civilization,  competent  to  quicken 
savages  to  advance  towards  it,  competent  also  in  all  the  marvelous 
progress  of  civilization  to  prove  itself  always  with  and  above  it, 
with  moral  and  spiritual  influences  adequate  to  elevate,  purify, 
sweeten,  and  ennoble  it.  Christianity  is  not  to  repress  the  cul¬ 
ture,  the  refinement,  the  energy,  the  manifold  development  of 
man,  but  to  vitalize  and  christianize  it. 

But  whatever  the  seeming  indifference  or  antagonism  to  scien¬ 
tific  or  aesthetic  progress  which  have  at  times  characterized  the 


438  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


predominance  of  the  moral  element  enforced  by  religion,  it  is 
merely  an  incident  of  a  period  of  transition  to  a  more  compre¬ 
hensive  and  harmonious  unity,  and  may  have  arisen  either  from 
the  seeming  urgency  of  more  directly  moral  and  religious  work, 
or  from  the  incompleteness  of  moral  and  religious  development 
at  the  time. 

This  more  comprehensive  unity  Christianity,  by  virtue  of  its 
distinctive  essence,  is  competent  to  effect.  Christian  civilization 
belongs  to  that  type  of  civilization  in  which  the  moral  forces 
predominate.  But  it  brings  these  moral  forces  into  action  in  a 
manner  peculiar  to  itself. 

It  does  not  require  primarily  love  to  truth,  nor  love  to  the  right, 
nor  love  to  the  perfect,  nor  love  to  the  good.  It  requires  pri¬ 
marily  love  to  persons,  to  God,  and  to  man.  To  this  love  of 
persons  all  love  of  truth,  law,  perfection,  and  good  are  subordi¬ 
nated,  and  under  its  inspiration  and  direction  all  scientific,  moral, 
aesthetic,  and  prudential  pursuits  and  interests  are  comprehended 
in  an  harmonious  unity. 

Christianity  presents  the  inexorable  law  itself  as  requiring  uni¬ 
versal  love,  and  reveals  that  God  is  love,  that  he  has  constituted 
the  universe  in  accordance  with  that  law,  and  that  the  penalty  is 
the  privation  of  good  and  the  suffering  of  evil  which  must  come 
on  one  who  anywhere  or  anywhen  in  this  universe  lives  a  life  of 
supreme  selfishness. 

Christianity  does  not  put  foremost  to  sinful  men  law,  with  its 
imperative  and  its  penalties,  but  it  puts  foremost  God  in  Christ 
redeeming  men  from  sin  and  seeking  to  bring  them  back  to  their 
normal  union  with  himself,  and  to  the  life  of  love  in  faith  in  him 
and  the  service  of  good-will  in  righteousness  to  God  and  men. 
This  faith  in  God,  under  the  influences  of  the  indwelling  Spirit, 
becomes  the  inspiration  of  the  life  of  spontaneous  love  to  God 
and  man. 

Here,  then,  in  Christianity,  is  that  which  saves  civilization  of 
the  moral  type  from  the  gloom,  intolerance,  and  severity  which 
have  sometimes  characterized  it  when  its  primary  motive  force 
has  been  zeal  for  truth  and  law.  Vitalized  by  faith  in  the  God 
in  Christ,  and  acting  in  the  enthusiasm  of  love  to  God  and  man,  it 
retains  all  its  earnestness,  energy,  and  inflexible  adherence  to  truth 
and  right.  It  has  even  more,  for  fidelity  to  principles,  fidelity  to 
truth  and  law,  is  vitalized  and  strengthened  by  loyalty  to  a  per- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


439 


sonal  sovereign,  to  Christ,  who  has  redeemed  men  by  his  blood, 
who  has  revealed  in  his  own  person  and  life  at  once  the  self- 
sacrificing  love  of  God  to  men,  the  ideal  moral  perfection  and 
beauty  of  man,  his  greatness  in  his  moral  likeness  to  God  and  as 
the  object  of  his  redeeming  love,  and  the  supremacy,  inviolable 
authority  and  the  unchangeableness  of  the  law,  which  even  in 
redeeming  sinners  and  forgiving  their  sins,  God  himself  obeys. 
But  the  moral  and  religious  character  is  no  longer  one-sided  and 
defective,  but  comprehends  in  harmonious  unity  all  that  belongs 
to  the  intellectual  activity,  the  obedience  to  law,  the  perfection 
and  moral  beauty,  and  the  true  well-being  of  man. 

The  Christian  life  starts,  it  is  true,  from  the  sense  of  condemna¬ 
tion  as  a  sinner.  From  this  the  Christian  is  delivered  when  he 
sees  and  trusts  God’s  redeeming  love  in  Jesus  Christ.  In  that 
faith,  which  is  the  inspiration  of  the  new  life,  the  gloom  of  sin 
and  condemnation  passes  away.  Life  becomes  trustful,  hopeful 
and  full  of  joy.  It  is  the  old  Greek  brightness  and  joyousness 
made  spiritual  and  divine  ;  not  the  joy  of  carelessness  and  disre¬ 
gard  of  evil,  but  a  joy  following  the  full  knowledge  of  sin  and  evil, 
and  of  the  deepest  spiritual  realities  of  our  being ;  the  joy  of 
acquaintance  with  God  and  reception  of  his  universal  and  infinite 
love  in  Jesus  Christ,  renewing,  receiving  into  union  with  himself, 
and  forgiving  sinners.  Inspired  by  this  faith,  the  predominance 
of  the  moral  element  no  longer  engenders  indifference  to  the 
world  and  weariness  of  life ;  it  is  not  stern,  intolerant,  persecuting 
in  the  consciousness  of  law  and  penalty.  But  its  motive  power  is 
spontaneous  love  like  that  of  Christ.  It  is  not  primarily  love  to 
truth,  or  law,  or  perfection  or  good,  but  love  to  God  in  Christ, 
and  love  to  all  men.  Thus,  like  Christ,  the  Christian  is  able,  not 
only  to  engage  in  great  enterprises  for  the  welfare  of  men,  and  to 
give  his  life  if  necessary  in  their  behalf,  teaching  the  principles 
and  inspiring  the  progress  of  a  higher  and  nobler  civilization,  — 
but  also,  like  Christ,  he  is  sensitive  to  every  human  interest,  taking 
children  in  his  arms  and  blessing  them,  weeping  with  those  who 
weep,  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities,  helping  the 
fallen  and  sinful  in  their  efforts  to  rise.  Thus  Christianity  devel¬ 
ops  a  civilization,  not  of  selfish  greed  of  gain  and  ambition  for 
pre-eminence,  manifested  in  the  combative  devices  of  reckless 
competition  and  combination,  but  of  the  mutual  trust  and  service 
of  universal  love  pervading  all  business  and  all  domestic  and 


440  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


social  life.  Here,  then,  within  the  sphere  of  Christianity,  is 
scope  for  the  expenditure  of  money,  time,  talent,  and  genius  on 
any  work  or  object  which  satisfies  personal  tastes,  desires  and 
affection,  and  is  accordant  with  righteousness  and  promotive  of 
the  culture,  development  and  well-being  of  man. 

Christian  love,  when  complete  as  love,  —  and  not  merely  one¬ 
sided,  as  duty  done  in  mere  obedience  to  law, —  and  when  it  has  had 
time  to  develop  its  inmost  nature,  must  bloom  in  beauty.  When 
the  gospel  has  free  course  it  must  be  glorified.  The  limping  god 
of  work  is  to  be  wedded  to  the  goddess  of  beauty.  The  moral  and 
spiritual  force,  which  Christianity  has  made  a  power  in  civilization, 
is  essentially  an  energy  of  reform  and  progress.  As  love  to  man 
in  manifestation  of  love  to  God  it  is  diffusive,  not  restrictive,  it  is 
in  its  essence  democratic,  concerned  with  the  interests  of  human¬ 
ity,  not  conservative  of  any  privileges  of  a  class  incompatible 
therewith.  There  is  necessarily  a  certain  revolutionary  destruc¬ 
tiveness  in  it,  under  some  conditions,  when  the  vital  and  spon¬ 
taneous  growth  of  Christ’s  kingdom  is  opposed  and  obstructed ; 
and  this  in  the  imperfect  development  of  man  at  the  time  may  be 
vitiated  by  human  passions.  The  sweeping  away  of  despotism 
and  of  the  debauchery  of  an  ancient  and  corrupt  regime  may 
sweep  away,  for  the  time  being,  something  of  refinement  and  cul¬ 
ture.  The  highest  form  in  which  a  civilization  founded  on  self- 
indulgence,  on  being  ministered  unto  instead  of  ministering,  can 
appear  is  that  in  which  the  self-indulgence  and  the  corruption  in¬ 
cident  to  it  are  concealed  by  a  gilding  of  refinement  and  culture, 
and  the  luxuriousness  delights  in  wit,  literature,  and  art ;  a  civili¬ 
zation  like  that  of  the  French  court  under  the  old  regime,  epi- 
grammatically  but  falsely  described  by  Burke  as  a  state  of  society 
in  which  vice  lost  half  its  evil  by  losing  all  its  grossness.  The 
grossness  was  there  beneath  all  the  gilding;  of  which  the  in¬ 
famous  pare  aux  cerfs  of  Louis  XV.  is  only  a  single  example 
out  of  many.  In  such  a  civilization  the  luxurious  refinement 
can  be  only  of  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  debasement  and 
misery  of  the  many.  When  the  culture  and  refinement  of  such 
corruption  is  swept  away,  it  is  only  clearing  the  ground  for  the 
people  as  such  to  have  their  rights  and  to  participate  in  the 
advantages  pf  advancing  Christian  civilization.  Thus,  through 
Christian  love,  a  true  culture  and  refinement,  not  on  the  surface 
only  but  in  the  inmost  character,  will  extend  among  the  people 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  DUTIES  TO  MEN 


441 


and  beautify  the  rough  and  unsightly  places  of  human  society. 
Thus  Christianity  is  progressively  fulfilling  the  ancient  prophecy  : 
“The  wilderness  and  the  solitary  place  shall  be  glad  for  them  and 
the  desert  shall  rejoice  and  blossom  as  the  rose.  Instead  of  the 
thorn  shall  come  up  the  fir-tree  and  instead  of  the  briar  shall 
come  up  the  myrtle  tree”  (Isa.  xxxv.  1;  lv.  13). 

There  is  then  scope  in  Christian  service  of  man  for  the  satisfac¬ 
tion  of  wants  beyond  the  mere  necessaries  of  life  and  for  the 
gratification  of  taste  and  desire  awakened  by  advancing  civiliza¬ 
tion.  But  such  gratification  must  not  be  in  indolent  and  luxuri¬ 
ous  self-indulgence,  but  must  be  subject  to  the  Christian  law  of 
universal  good-will  regulated  by  righteousness  ;  and  the  expendi¬ 
ture  of  time,  strength,  and  money  in  attaining  such  gratification 
must  be  approved  by  the  reason  and  conscience  as  a  Christian 
service  of  man.  It  is  right  to  break  the  alabaster  box  of  precious 
ointment ;  but  one  must  see  that  he  breaks  it  at  the  Saviour’s 
feet. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 

The  sanction  of  the  law  is  the  punishment  inflicted  by  the  gov¬ 
ernment  on  the  transgressor.  Blackstone  defines  it  in  the  civil 
law :  “  The  sanction  or  vindicatory  branch  of  the  law,  whereby  it 
is  signified  what  evil  or  penalty  shall  be  incurred  by  such  as  com¬ 
mit  any  public  wrongs,  and  transgress  or  neglect  their  duty.”  1 
The  sanction  of  the  divine  law  has  essentially  the  same  signifi¬ 
cance.  It  is  the  punishment  coming  from  God  on  the  trans¬ 
gressors  of  his  law. 

Eschatology,  the  doctrine  of  the  last  things,  considers  questions 
of  fact  as  to  what  will  be  the  final  destiny  of  man,  and  what  will 
be  the  events  attending  the  close  of  the  earthly  history  of  man¬ 
kind.  Man  is  not  only  under  law,  but  also  is  a  sinner  already 
under  condemnation  as  a  transgressor  of  the  law.  As  such  he  is 
the  object  of  God’s  redeeming  grace.  The  question  arises,  What 
will  be  the  ultimate  issue  of  redemption?  Will  it  insure  the  sal¬ 
vation  of  all  men  or  only  of  some  men?  Will  any  have  the  offers 
and  influences  of  redemption  after  death,  or  will  the  destiny  of 
every  individual  be  decided  in  this  life?  These  questions  of 
eschatology  are  all  questions  of  fact.  They  can  be  answered  only 
from  the  revelation  which  God  has  made  of  himself  as  the  re¬ 
deemer  of  men  from  sin  culminating  in  Christ,  as  recorded  in  the 
Bible.  With  these  questions  of  fact  we  have  no  concern  here. 
We  consider  punishment  here  only  in  its  significance  and  neces¬ 
sity  in  its  relation  to  the  law  as  its  sanction.  This  may  be  called 
the  ethics  of  punishment. 

I.  Definition.  —  Punishment  is  suffering  or  privation  inflicted 
by  a  government  on  a  transgressor,  due  to  him  in  accordance  with 

1  Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of  England,  Introd.,  sect.  2.  Austin’s  defi¬ 
nition  is  essentially  the  same  ;  Jurisprudence,  vol.  i.  pp.  6-S. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


443 


the  law  for  his  ill-deserts  ;  by  it  the  government  asserts,  maintains, 
and  vindicates  the  inviolable  authority  of  itself  and  its  law  in  the 
face  of  transgression,  and  thus  preserves  the  constitution  and  order 
of  society  and  protects  the  individual  members  of  society  from 
wrong-doers.  This  is  a  definition  of  punishment  under  any  gov¬ 
ernment,  human  or  divine.  To  make  it  a  definition  distinctive  of 
punishment  under  God’s  government  we  need  only  to  substitute 
“  the  integrity  and  order  of  the  moral  system  ”  for  “  the  constitu¬ 
tion  and  order  of  society;  ”  for  God’s  government  is  not  limited 
to  any  particular  community,  but  extends  over  the  entire  moral 
system. 

i.  Punishment  is  privation  of  good  or  the  positive  suffering  of 
evil.  Liability  to  such  privation  and  suffering  is  essential  to  the 
existence  of  a  moral  svstem  and  to  the  administration  of  moral 
government.  I  say  liability,  not  the  actual  privation  and  suffer¬ 
ing  ;  for  if,  in  the  exercise  of  free  agency,  no  one  should  sin,  no 
one  would  be  punished.  If  there  were  no  such  liability,  there 
would  be  no  means  of  moral  discipline  nor  of  maintaining  the 
authority  of  government  against  transgressors.  If  no  loss  of  good 
and  no  positive  suffering  of  evil  followed  wrong-doing,  the  selfish 
sinner  would  incur  no  loss  of  good  and  no  positive  suffering  by  his 
sin,  but  would  attain  all  well-being  as  really  as  one  who  always 
lives  the  life  of  love.  In  any  moral  system  it  depends  on  the 
person’s  own  free  moral  action  and  on  the  moral  character  which 
he  forms  for  himself  by  his  free  action,  whether  he  realizes  good 
or  only  evil.  Without  this  dependence  of  well-being  or  the  con¬ 
trary  on  a  person’s  moral  action  and  character  a  moral  system  and 
moral  government  would  be  impossible.  This  is  a  forcible  argu¬ 
ment  in  theodicy,  that  without  the  liability  to  privation  and  suf¬ 
fering  a  moral  system  would  be  impossible,  because  all  discipline 
in  the  development  of  right  character  and  all  punishment  for 
wrong-doing  would  be  impossible. 

We  must  not  infer,  however,  that  God  created  the  liability  to 
suffer  solely  that  he  might  have  the  means  of  discipline  and  punish¬ 
ment.  On  the  contrary,  all  finite  persons,  by  virtue  of  the  essen¬ 
tial  limitation  of  their  powers,  susceptibilities,  and  attainments,  are 
liable  to  privation  or  loss  of  good  and  to  positive  suffering  both 
mental  and  physical.  If  God  creates,  the  universe  created  and 
all  substances,  beings,  and  powers  in  it  must  be  finite,  and  his 
revelation  of  himself  in  it  must  be  progressive.  If  he  creates  a 


444  the  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


moral  system,  it  must  be  composed  of  finite  persons  under  the  moral 
government  of  God.  This  liability  inseparable  from  finiteness 
gives  the  conditions  and  means  of  moral  discipline  and  of  punish¬ 
ment. 

2.  Punishment  is  privation  or  suffering  inflicted  by  the  gov¬ 
ernment  on  a  transgressor  in  accordance  with  the  law  for  his  ill- 
deserts.  It  presupposes  government  having  rightful  authority,  and 
law  declaring  obligation.  It  presupposes  the  possibility  of  the 
transgression  of  the*  law  on  account  of  free  will,  and  the  trans¬ 
gressor’s  guilt  or  desert  of  punishment.  The  necessity  of  the 
punishment  of  a  transgressor,  if  any  one  does  transgress,  is  in¬ 
volved  in  the  idea  of  law  and  government.  There  can  be  no 
immutable  distinction  of  right  and  wrong,  and  no  inviolable  and 
immutable  authority  of  government  and  law,  implying  obligation 
to  obedience,  if  the  law  is  not  sanctioned  by  any  punishment  of 
transgressors.  There  can  be  no  law  without  a  sanction.  Without 
it  law  would  fade  into  advice  or  entreaty.  Whatever  are  the  au¬ 
thority  and  obligation  of  the  command  of  the  law,  the  same  are 
the  authority  and  obligation  of  its  sanction  by  punishment.  A 
transgressor  of  the  law  forfeits  his  right  to  the  good  which  would 
have  followed  obedience  and  has  a  right  only  to  punishment  in 
accordance  with  the  law.  In  other  words  the  punishment  is  due 
to  him  in  accordance  with  the  law;  he  is  guilty  and  deserves 
the  punishment.  His  punishment  does  not  violate  any  right  of 
the  criminal,  does  not  deprive  him  of  any  right.  It  is  only  render¬ 
ing  to  him  that  which  is  his  due,  that  which  it  is  right  he  should 
receive,  that  which  alone  he  has  a  right  to  or  deserves.  The  law 
asserts  its  authority  over  all ;  over  the  obedient  by  the  command 
which  they  obey  ;  over  the  disobedient  by  inflicting  the  punishment 
which  they  deserve.  As  Augustine  said,  “  Punishment  is  the  justice 
due  to  the  unjust.” 

3.  It  is  inflicted  by  the  government  to  assert,  maintain,  and 
vindicate  the  inviolable  authority  of  the  government  and  the  im¬ 
mutable  obligation  of  the  law  in  the  face  of  transgression.  In  the 
law  itself  the  government  proclaims  its  authoritative  command  and 
the  obligation  of  all  to  obey.  Some  one  transgresses  the  law. 
The  government  reasserts  the  authority  of  the  law  and  the  obli¬ 
gation  to  obedience  by  the  punishment  of  the  criminal,  and 
thus  asserts,  maintains,  and  enforces  the  law  and  vindicates  its 
authority. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


445 


This  is  the  primary  end  for  which  punishment  is  inflicted.  The 
action  of  the  government  in  punishing  is  not  revenge,  inflicting 
evil  for  evil  received.  It  is  the  dispassionate,  judicial  act  of  the 
government  asserting,  maintaining,  and  vindicating  its  authority 
and  the  immutable  obligation  of  the  law  by  inflicting  privation  or 
suffering  on  the  transgressor  according  to  his  deserts.  Theolo¬ 
gians  have  used  the  phrase  “  vindictive  justice,”  to  denote  that 
God’s  justice  is  distinctively  punitive  and  not  merely  reformatory 
or  disciplinary ;  and  it  is  still  sometimes  used  in  this  sense.  But 
the  word  vindictive  has  an  opprobrious  meaning  as  denoting 
malignant  revenge.  The  true  meaning  is  that  God’s  justice  is 
vindicative  or  vindicatory.  It  vindicates  the  inviolable  authority 
and  immutable  obligation  of  the  law  of  love  by  bringing  on  the 
transgressor  the  privation  of  all  true  good  or  well-being  and  the 
suffering  of  evil  which,  according  to  the  law  of  love  itself,  in  a 
universe  constituted  according  to  the  principles  and  laws  of  rea¬ 
son  and  for  the  realization  of  rational  ideals,  must  come  on  every 
one  who  in  transgression  and  defiance  of  the  law  lives  a  life  of 
self-sufficiency,  self-will,  self-seeking,  and  self-glorifying. 

4.  The  infliction  of  punishment  is  the  prerogative  of  the  gov¬ 
ernment  alone.  This  is  involved  in  the  very  idea  of  punishment 
as  asserting  and  vindicating  the  authority  of  the  government  and 
the  law.  In  the  nature  of  the  case  this  can  be  done  only  by  the 
government  itself.  If  it  does  not  by  its  own  act  punish  the  crimi¬ 
nal,  it  fails  to  vindicate,  in  the  presence  of  transgression,  its  own 
rightful  authority  and  the  immutable  obligation  of  obedience  to 
the  law.  If  it  never  punished  a  transgressor  it  would  thereby 
renounce  its  right  to  govern  and  would  abdicate  the  government. 
If  private  individuals,  in  indignation  at  the  crime,  inflict  privation 
or  suffering  on  the  criminal,  this  in  itself  would  be  a  violation  of 
the  law,  and  would  only  make  more  conspicuous  the  weakness  of 
the  government  in  not  punishing  either  the  original  criminal  or 
the  persons  who,  in  violation  of  law,  criminally  subjected  him 
to  indignity  and  violence.  And  the  criminal  cannot  make  satis-  % 
faction  for  his  crime  by  inflicting  privation  and  suffering  on  him¬ 
self.  He  may  thus  express  his  own  sense  of  ill-desert ;  but  he 
cannot  accomplish  the  distinctive  ends  of  punishment.  Between 
private  persons  one  who  has  done  wrong  to  another  may  by  his 
own  act  make  satisfaction  for  the  wrong  done.  This  is  because 
they  stand  on  an  equality,  neither  having  authority  to  command 


446  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


or  govern  the  other.  This,  by  abuse,  may  lead  to  the  extreme  of 
the  duel  or  the  vendetta,  and  so  supersede  the  authority  of 
government.  The  criminal  cannot  thus  give  satisfaction  to  the 
government  whose  law  he  has  broken  and  whose  authority  he  has 
spurned.  The  authority  of  the  law  and  the  government  can  be 
vindicated  only  by  the  government  itself  pronouncing  judgment 
on  the  criminal  as  guilty,  and  imposing  on  him  privation  or  suffer¬ 
ing  in  punishment  for  his  crime. 

The  same  principle  holds  true  of  the  government  of  God. 
Punishment  is  imposed  on  the  sinner  by  the  judgment  and  act  of 
God.  It  expresses  God’s  displacency  toward  him  as  a  sinner  and  his 
condemnation  of  him  as  guilty ;  and  in  it  God  asserts,  vindicates, 
and  maintains  the  inviolable  authority  and  immutable  obligation 
of  the  law  of  love  in  the  face  of  transgression.1  When  a  church 
imposes  privation  or  suffering  on  a  sinner  as  a  penance,  it  usurps 
the  authority  of  civil  government  and  of  God.  When  a  sinner 
inflicts  on  himself  privation  and  suffering  as  a  penance,  —  that  is,  as 
a  satisfaction  to  the  law  for  sin, — it  avails  nothing  to  insure  merit, 
remove  guilt  or  avert  punishment.2  Penitence,  like  penance,  is 
derived  etymologically  from  the  Latin  poena .  Lienee,  those  using 
the  Latin  language  might  easily  identify  penitence  with  penance. 
In  the  Douay  version  of  the  New  Testament,  repent  is  commonly 
translated  do  penance.  But  the  Greek  words  in  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  translated  repent  and  repentance  are  etymologically  entirely 
different  words,  having  no  reference  whatever  to  punishment,  but 
denoting  a  change  of  mind.  They  imply  sorrow  for  and  renun¬ 
ciation  of  sin  in  beginning  a  new  character  and  life.  Penitence 
in  this,  its  true  meaning,  being  the  act  of  the  sinner,  does  nothing 
to  maintain  and  vindicate  the  inviolable  authority  of  the  govern¬ 
ment  and  law,  further  than  this  private  individual’s  consent  and 
submission  to  it.  When  God  forgives  the  penitent,  he  does  it 
through  Christ  in  a  way  in  which  he  asserts,  maintains,  and  vindi¬ 
cates  the  authority  of  the  law  as  really  as  the  punishment  of  the 
sinner  persisting  in  impenitence  would  have  done. 


1  Rom.  xii.  19-21  and  xiii.  1-7  ;  Deut.  xxxii.  35-43  ;  Psalm  xciv.  1. 

2  The  Latin  form  of  expression,  dare  poenas ,  seems  to  mean  that  the 
criminal  gives  an  indemnification,  expiation,  or  satisfaction  for  his  crime.  But 
in  the  actual  administration  of  the  government  it  was  understood  that  the 
criminal  gave  satisfaction  only  as  the  punishment  was  imposed  on  him  by 
the  government. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


447 


5.  The  design  of  punishment  is  not  primarily  the  reformation 
or  well-being  of  the  criminal.  Punishment  must  be  distinguished 
from  discipline.  The  latter  is  privation,  tasks,  or  suffering  im¬ 
posed  on  a  person  for  his  own  education,  development,  and 
improvement.  Discipline  may  be  imposed  on  a  person  by  him¬ 
self,  by  an  educator,  by  a  parent,  by  the  civil  government,  or  by 
God.  Privation,  tasks,  or  suffering  not  designed  to  promote 
one’s  education  and  development,  as  the  amputation  of  a  limb  by 
a  surgeon,  are  not  discipline.  Yet  the  sufferer  may  use  it  as  self- 
discipline,  acquiring  under  it  patience,  submission  to  the  will  of 
God,  strength  under  privation  and  suffering,  self-development  in 
many  ways. 

Discipline  is  distinguished  from  punishment  in  that  it  is  prima¬ 
rily  for  the  improvement  of  the  recipient,  while  punishment  is  for 
the  ends  already  specified  in  the  definition,  and  not  primarily  nor 
essentially  for  the  improvement  or  good  of  the  person  punished. 
Punishment  may  involve  the  sacrifice  of  the  criminal’s  well-being. 

An  innocent  person  may  be  the  subject  of  discipline,  but  not 
of  punishment.  A  child  or  a  soldier,  who  has  committed  no 
crime,  may  rightly  be  subjected  to  discipline,  but  not  to  punish¬ 
ment.  God  disciplines  men  in  his  providential  dealing  with  them 
in  the  privations  and  afflictions  of  human  life.  “  Whom  the  Lord 
loveth  he  chasteneth  and  scourgeth  every  son  whom  he  receiveth” 
(Heb.  xii.  6). 

The  theory  has  gained  some  currency  that  government  has  no 
right  to  inflict  punishment  in  its  distinctive  meaning  as  I  have 
defined  it,  but  only  to  exercise  discipline,  inflicting  on  the  criminal 
only  such  privation  or  suffering  as  is  fitted  and  intended  to  pro¬ 
mote  his  reformation  and  insure  his  good.  This  theory,  if  carried 
out  in  practice,  would  annihilate  all  law  and  government.  Gov¬ 
ernment  would  have  no  right  to  take  life,  for  that  could  not  be  a 
discipline  promoting  the  good  of  the  person  slain.  Then  every 
rebellion  and  even  every  local  mob  would  have  everything  its  own 
way,  for  government  would  have  no  right  to  suppress  it  by  armed 
force.  Thus  government  would  be  powerless  to  enforce  any  law 
or  to  maintain  its  authority.  The  theory  is  equally  subversive  of 
the  law  and  government  of  God.  If  it  were  true,  supreme  selfish¬ 
ness  in  disobedience  to  God’s  lav/,  if  persisted  in,  could  not 
prevent  the  sinner’s  attaining  his  highest  good ;  for,  according  to 
this  theory,  God’s  law  and  government  would  be  such  that  God 


448  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


could  not  subject  the  sinner  to  any  privation  or  suffering  except 
such  as  would  promote  his  highest  good.  Thus  love  and  selfish¬ 
ness  in  their  actual  results  would  be  the  same  ;  each  would  alike 
insure  a  person’s  highest  good  ;  and  the  law  of  love  would  no 
longer  be  of  supreme  and  absolute  authority  and  obligation,  the 
moral  system  would  fall  into  chaos,  and  the  constitution  of  the 
universe  would  be  subverted.  If  we  look  at  it  from  a  slightly 
different  point  of  view,  it  is  evident  that  if  punishment  is  not 
allowed,  but  only  discipline,  then,  when  God  foresees  that  any 
sinner  will  persist  in  sin  incorrigibly,  he  will  not  bring  on  him 
any  privation  or  suffering  whatever,  for  he  would  see  that  disci¬ 
pline  would  be  useless,  and  punishment  is  forbidden.  Thus  again 
moral  government  and  law  would  be  annihilated. 

Punishment,  however,  does  not  exclude  discipline,  so  far  as 
compatible  with  punishment  and  subordinate  to  its  distinctive 
idea  and  end.  Hence  civil  government  provides  reform  schools, 
and  directs  the  arrangement  and  administration  of  prisons  to  pre¬ 
vent  further  corruption  of  the  less  criminal  and  to  promote  the 
reformation  of  all  the  prisoners.1  Accordingly  prison-discipline 
and  the  treatment  of  criminals  have  become  subjects  of  earnest 
investigation  to  devise  the  best  methods,  while  retaining  punish¬ 
ment  in  its  distinctive  idea,  so  to  order  it  as  most  effectively  to 
promote  the  reformation  of  the  corrigible  and  to  seclude  those 
who,  by  repeated  convictions,  have  proved  themselves  incor¬ 
rigible,  so  that  they  shall  have  no  further  opportunity  to  inflict 
injuries  on  society. 

The  same  principle  holds  good  in  the  divine  government.  The 
punishment  of  sinners,  while  it  is  distinctively  punishment,  is  de¬ 
signed  to  be  also  disciplinary  and  to  lead  the  sinner  to  repentance 
and  to  reunion  with  God  in  the  life  of  love.  Some  theologians 
have  taught  that  the  evils  consequent  on  sin  in  this  life  are  dis¬ 
ciplinary  only ;  and  that  punishment  in  its  distinctive  meaning  is 
inflicted  only  after  death.  But  this  is  certainly  contrary  to  the 
scriptures,  which  continually  represent  evils  brought  on  men  by  sin 
in  this  life  as  coming  by  judgments  of  God  in  punishment  for  sin. 
The  same  is  the  explicit  doctrine  of  the  Westminster  Larger  Cat- 

1  Clement  XI.  placed  on  the  door  of  the  prison  of  St.  Michael  the  inscrip¬ 
tion  ;  “  Parum  est  improbos  coercere  poena,  nisi  probos  efficias  disciplina;  ” 
“  it  avails  little  to  restrain  the  wicked  by  punishment  unless  you  make  them 
virtuous  by  discipline.” 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


449 


echism  :  “  The  punishments  of  sin  in  this  world  are  either  inward, 
as  blindness  of  mind,  a  reprobate  sense,  strong  delusions,  hard¬ 
ness  of  heart,  horror  of  conscience  and  vile  affections  ;  or  outward, 
as  the  curse  of  God  upon  the  creatures  for  our  sakes,  and  all  other 
evils  that  befall  us  in  our  bodies,  names,  estates,  relations,  and  em¬ 
ployments,  together  with  death  itself.” 1  Christ  seems  to  teach  that 
some  even  in  this  life  commit  the  sin  which  hath  never  forgiveness.2 
But  the  privations  and  evils  brought  on  men  in  this  life  by  sin, 
while  they  are  real  punishments,  are  also  disciplinary.  This  is 
intimated  in  many  scriptural  representations  of  God  like  that  in 
Hosea :  “  My  people  are  bent  to  backsliding  from  me ;  though 
they  call  them  to  him  who  is  on  high,  none  at  all  will  exalt  him. 
How  shall  I  give  thee  up,  Ephraim?  How  shall  I  deliver  thee, 
Israel?  How  shall  I  make  thee  as  Admah?  How  shall  I  set 
thee  as  Zeboim?”  (xi.  7-8).  Thus  in  punishing  sin  God  is  seek¬ 
ing  to  turn  the  sinner  from  sin.  In  this  sense  there  is  truth  in 
the  poetical  representation  of  God’s  judgment  on  sinners  as 
“  reluctant  wrath.”  So  Isaiah  declares  God’s  gracious  disposition 
even  in  his  righteous  judgments  :  “  Therefore  will  Jehovah  wait 
that  he  may  be  gracious  unto  you,  and  therefore  will  he  be 
exalted  that  he  may  have  mercy  upon  you  ;  for  Jehovah  is  a  God 
of  judgment ;  blessed  are  all  they  who  wait  upon  him  ” 
(xxx.  18).  So  Christ  wept,  foreseeing  the  rejection  of  Israel 
because,  in  the  very  consummation  of  God’s  gracious  dealings 
with  them,  they  were  rejecting  their  long-expected  Messiah,  and 
exclaimed,  “  How  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  children 
together,  even  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings, 
and  ye  would  not.  Oh  that  thou  hadst  known,  even  thou,  at 
least  in  this  thy  day,  the  things  which  belong  unto  thy  peace  ! 
But  now  they  are  hid  from  thine  eyes”  (Matth.  xxiii.  37  ;  Luke 
xix.  41,  42).  But  he  did  not  avert  the  impending  doom.  In 
this,  as  in  all  his  character  and  action,  Christ  is  the  exponent  to 
us  of  the  heart  and  thought  of  God,  revealed  under  human  limita¬ 
tions  and  conditions.  He  teaches  further  that  the  only  unpar¬ 
donable  sin  is  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  in  the  Spirit 
that  God  brings  his  gracious  offers  and  influences  in  redemption 
to  bear  on  sinners  to  induce  them  to  turn  from  their  sin.  These 

1  The  proof-texts  cited  are  Eph.  iv.  18;  Rom.  i.  26-28;  ii.  5;  vi.  21,  23; 
2  Thess.  ii.  11;  Gen.  iii.  17;  Deut.  xxviii.  15-68;  Isa.  xxxiii.  14. 

2  Matth.  xii.  31,  32;  Mark  iii.  28-30;  Luke  xii.  10. 

VOL.  n.  —  29 


450  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


are,  if  I  may  use  the  expression,  the  last  resort  of  God’s  wisdom 
and  love  in  saving  men  from  sin.  The  persistent  rejection  of 
these  offers  and  resistance  of  these  influences  of  God’s  redeeming 
grace  exclude  the  sinner  from  forgiveness,  and  ultimately  form  a 
character  so  confirmed  in  selfishness  and  sin  that  no  gracious 
moral  influence  will  ever  avail  to  induce  him  to  return  to  God  in 
self-renouncing  love.  Then  “  there  remaineth  no  more  sacrifice 
for  sins,  but  a  certain  fearful  looking-for  of  judgment  and  fiery 
indignation  which  shall  devour  the  adversaries”  (Heb.  x.  26,  27). 
The  sinner  has  put  himself  beyond  the  reach  of  redeeming  grace, 
having  chosen  the  evil  as  his  good  and  made  himself  insensible  to 
all  the  heavenly  motives  and  influences  attracting  to  the  divine  life 
of  love.  This  Christ  declares  to  be  the  only  unpardonable  sin,  — 
unpardonable,  not  because  God’s  grace  is  exhausted,  but  because 
the  sinner  has  made  himself  unsusceptible  and  dead  to  the  gracious 
influence.1  Even  the  incorrigible  sinner  is  still  the  object  of  God’s 
good-will,  encompassing  him  as  an  atmosphere  or  as  the  sunlight. 
All  the  influences  which  come  from  God  upon  him  are  the  influences 
of  good-will  exercised  in  righteousness.  As  they  issue  from  God 
they  are  only  good.  Whether  they  bring  a  blessing  or  a  woe  on 
the  man  on  whom  they  fall,  is  determined  by  the  reception  given 
them  by  the  man,  yielding  to  them  and  returning  to  God  in  self- 
renouncing  love,  or  resisting  them  and  thereby  hardening  himself 
in  sin.  Accordingly,  the  punishment  is  represented  in  the  Bible 
as  the  sinners  reaping  what  they  have  sown,  treasuring  up  unto 
themselves  wrath  against  the  day  of  wrath  (Gal.  vi.  7,  8,  Rom. 
ii.  5)  ;  and  as  God  giving  them  up  to  their  own  hearts’  lust  to 
walk  in  their  own  counsels  (Psalm  lxxxi.  12;  Rom.  i.  24,  26; 
Acts  vii.  42;  Eph.  iv.  18,  19;  2  Thess.  ii.  11,  12).  “For  that 
they  hated  knowledge  and  did  not  choose  the  fear  of  the  Lord ; 
they  would  none  of  my  counsel ;  they  despised  all  my  reproofs. 
Therefore  shall  they  eat  of  the  fruit  of  their  own  way  and  be  filled 

1  Augustine  defines  the  unpardonable  sin  as  “  an  obstinate  stubbornness 
with  distrust  of  pardon  until  death.”  Calvin  justly  criticises  the  phrase 
“  until  death,”  as  incompatible  with  Christ’s  assertion  that  it  shall  not  be 
forgiven  “in  this  world,”  implying  that  the  sin  maybe  committed  in  this 
life.  Calvin  defines  it  as  deliberate  resistance  of  God’s  Spirit  with  clear 
knowledge  that  it  is  the  Spirit  ;  and  this,  not  in  a  single  lapse,  but  in  a  uni¬ 
versal  defection  from  the  known  truth  of  God.  He  says  men  commit  the 
unpardonable  sin  against  the  Holy  Spirit  “in  hoc  tantum  ut  resistunt,”  in 
this  only  that  they  resist  him.”  —  Institutes,  Bk.  III.  chap.  iii.  22,  23. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


451 


with  their  own  devices.  For  the  turning  away  of  the  simple 
shall  slay  them  and  the  prosperity  of  fools  shall  destroy  them  ” 
(Prov.  i.  29-32).  God’s  good-will  and  his  redeeming  love 
change  not;  he,  as  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ,  is  the  same  yester¬ 
day,  to-day,  and  forever  (Heb.  xiii.  8).  His  compassion,  even  to 
the  incorrigible,  expressed  by  Christ  under  human  limitations  and 
conditions  in  tears,  is  as  much  greater  than  the  weeping  compas¬ 
sion  of  man,  as  the  absolute  is  greater  than  the  finite.  If  any 
sinner,  after  however  long  persistence  in  sin,  would  yield  to  the 
divine  love  encompassing  him  and  return  to  God  in  penitential 
and  loving  trust,  God  would  receive  him  with  more  than  the  joy 
with  which  the  father  in  the  parable  received  his  prodigal  son  at 
his  return. 

6.  Punishment  is  designed  to  promote  the  welfare  of  society 
and  the  protection  of  individuals  from  wrong-doers,  not  in  all 
ways,  but  only  in  the  ways  specified  in  our  definition  of 
punishment. 

First,  in  the  punishment  of  criminals  the  government  preserves 
the  organization  and  order  of  society  by  asserting,  maintaining, 
and  vindicating  the  universal  and  immutable  authority  and  obliga¬ 
tion  of  just  law  after  it  has  been  transgressed.  This  is  fundamen¬ 
tal.  Without  affixing  penalty  to  the  transgression  of  the  law, 
government  and  law  would  cease  and  anarchy  would  ensue ;  and 
anarchy  is  moral  chaos.  Thus  it  is  by  the  assertion,  maintenance, 
and  vindication  of  the  authority  of  government  and  law  in  affixing 
punishment  to  transgression  that  government  preserves  the  con¬ 
stitution  and  order  of  society ;  and  it  is  primarily  by  thus  preserv¬ 
ing  the  constitution  and  order  of  society  that  the  government 
protects  individuals  in  their  rights  against  wrong-doers. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  moral  system.  God  maintains  the 
integrity  of  the  moral  system,  after  any  person  has  sinned,  by 
the  punishment  that  comes  inevitably  on  every  transgressor,  and 
by  which  God  asserts,  maintains,  and  vindicates  the  supreme  and 
universal  authority  and  obligation  of  the  law  of  love.  Under  that 
law  a  life  of  selfishness  must  miss  all  true  good  and  must  insure 
only  evil  to  the  selfish  person.  If  it  were  not  so,  the  law  of  love 
would  no  longer  be  the  supreme  and  universal  law  of  the  moral 
system.  Thus  the  fundamental  law  of  the  moral  system  would 
be  subverted,  the  reign  of  moral  law  would  cease,  and  the  uni¬ 
verse  would  be  under  the  control  either  of  blind  force  or  of 


452  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


lawless  and  resistless  caprice.  It  is  by  thus  asserting,  maintain¬ 
ing,  and  vindicating  the  supreme  and  universal  authority  and 
obligation  of  the  law  of  love  that  the  integrity  of  the  moral 
system  is  preserved,  the  reign  of  wisdom  and  love  in  accordance 
with  the  eternal  principles,  laws,  ideals,  and  ends  of  reason  is 
perpetuated,  and  a  moral  system  continued  in  existence.  And 
it  is  thus  primarily  and  fundamentally  that,  after  persons  have 
sinned,  God  protects  individuals  from  injury  by  wrong-doers. 

Secondly,  the  fact  that  law  affixes  a  penalty  on  transgression 
exerts  a  moral  influence  in  deterring  from  crime.  This  moral 
influence  will  be  proportional  to  the  justice  of  the  penalty  and 
the  certainty  and  promptness  of  its  infliction  on  every  criminal. 

This  moral  influence  is  twofold.  It  consists  in  part  of  the  fear 
of  punishment  which  is  a  deterrent  from  crime.  This,  of  course, 
has  no  immediate  and  conscious  influence  on  the  majority  of  per¬ 
sons  in  well-ordered  society.  Those  whose  characters  are  already 
formed  in  moral  integrity  abstain  from  cheating,  stealing,  and 
killing  without  ever  thinking  of  the  legal  punishment.  But  per¬ 
sons  of  vicious  proclivities  may  be  restrained  from  crime  by  fear 
of  punishment.  Even  persons  of  ordinary  integrity,  under  great 
temptation,  may  be  influenced  in  resisting  by  the  knowledge  that 
punishment  will  follow  crime.  If  the  government  is  efficient  in 
detecting  and  punishing  criminals,  so  as  to  insure  a  reasonable 
certainty  that  the  penalty  of  the  law  will  speedily  follow  crime, 
the  fear  of  punishment  will  have  a  wide  and  powerful  influence 
in  deterring  from  crime  and  protecting  individuals  from  wrong¬ 
doers. 

A  much  more  important  moral  influence  in  preventing  crime 
is  the  educating  power  of  law  maintained  and  enforced  by  pun¬ 
ishment.  This  is  commonly  overlooked.  A  government  that 
enacts  just  laws  and  efficiently  enforces  them  by  the  just  punish¬ 
ment  of  criminals,  is  continually  educating  the  people  to  respect 
for  the  government,  reverence  for  law,’  and  a  healthy  indigna¬ 
tion  against  wrong-doers  and  condemnation  of  them.  And 
confidence  in  the  justice  and  efficiency  of  the  government  in 
punishing  criminals  will  prevent  lynch-law.  If  the  government 
is  inefficient  in  its  administration  of  justice,  it  loses  the  respect 
and  confidence  of  the  people  and  becomes  an  object  of  disgust 
and  contempt.  By  the  efficient  enforcement  of  just  law  by  the 
punishment  of  transgressors,  the  government  is  educating  the 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


453 


people  to  a  just  estimate  of  the  sacredness  of  human  rights  and 
of  the  wickedness  and  ill-desert  of  the  person  who  violates  them. 
The  capital  punishment  of  murderers  educates  the  people  to  a 
just  estimate  of  the  worth  and  sacredness  of  human  life.  In 
former  times  when  stealing  a  few  shillings  was  equally  with  mur¬ 
der  punished  with  death,  it  educated  the  people,  not  to  a  high 
estimate  of  the  rights  of  property  but  to  a  low  estimate  of  the 
right  to  life.  Such  legislation  could  only  have  originated  in  a 
lower  stage  of  civilization,  in  which  people  had  not  been  educated 
to  Christian  humanity  and  to  a  just  estimate  of  the  worth  of 
human  life.  Should  capital  punishment  be  now  abolished,  gov¬ 
ernment  would  be  educating  the  people  to  regard  crime  against 
life  as  no  more  heinous  than  crime  against  property.  It  cannot 
be  known  what  the  influence  of  such  legislation  will  be  until  time 
enough  has  elapsed  to  disclose  the  effects  of  its  educating  power 
on  the  people.  Thus  the  suspension  of  just  punishment  would 
educate  the  people  to  contempt  for  government  and  law  and  to 
recklessness  of  the  rights  of  men  and  of  the  criminality  of  vio¬ 
lating  them ;  and  it  would  tend  to  blunt  indignation  against 
wrong-doing,  and  equally  to  blunt  heroic  enthusiasm  in  doing 
and  suffering  for  truth  and  righteousness. 

“  For  if  the  dead,  as  dust  and  nothing  found, 

Shall  lie  there  in  his  woe, 

And  they  shall  fail  to  pay 
The  penalty  of  blood, 

Then  would  all  reverence  from  earth  decay 
And  all  religion  prove  a  thing  of  nought.” 1 

Similar  beneficent  moral  influences  are  exerted  by  the  connec¬ 
tion  of  penalty  with  sin  under  the  moral  government  of  God.  In 
the  moral  system  under  God’s  law  of  love  it  is  impossible  for  any 
person  living  in  selfishness  to  realize  good  or  well-being  at  any 
time  or  in  any  place  in  the  universe.  And  it  is  equally  impos¬ 
sible  for  any  person  living  in  universal  love  to  miss  the  true  good 
and  well-being.  Thus  all  God’s  action  in  the  constitution  and 
evolution  of  the  universe,  being  the  continuous  expression,  main¬ 
tenance,  and  enforcement  of  the  law  of  love,  is  fitted  to  educate 
men  to  reverence  God  and  his  law,  to  estimate  aright  the  true 
excellence  and  worth  of  the  life  of  love  and  the  wickedness,  guilt, 
and  misery  of  a  life  of  selfishness,  and  so  is  bringing  on  them 


1  Sophocles,  “  Electra,”  244-250. 


454  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


continual  moral  influences  to  lead  them  to  the  life  of  love  and 
to  confirm  them  in  it. 

Thirdly,  by  punishment  government  protects  individuals  from 
injury  done  by  wrong-doers,  by  restraining  criminals,  temporarily 
or  permanently,  from  the  opportunity  to  do  injury.  It  is  desir¬ 
able  that  there  should  be  some  legal  method  by  which  those, 
proved  by  repeated  convictions  to  be  incorrigible,  may  be  per¬ 
manently  imprisoned,  that  so  society  may  be  protected  from  the 
continuance  of  their  crimes.  The  Bible  declares  an  analogous 
separation  of  the  wicked  from  the  righteous  in  the  final  judgment. 

7.  Punishment  does  not  accomplish  the  design  or  end  of  the 
law  in  its  requirement  of  universal  love. 

The  ultimate  end  of  the  law  is  to  bring  all  persons  to  love  God 
with  all  their  hearts  and  their  neighbors  as  themselves.  This  is 
what  it  requires  and  is  designed  to  promote.  It  aims  to  secure 
throughout  the  moral  system  the  reign  of  universal  love  and  the 
well-being  involved  therein.  It  requires  obedience  ;  and  obedi¬ 
ence  is  possible  only  in  the  exercise  of  the  love  which  the  law 
requires.  Punishment  is  not  the  end  or  aim  of  the  law,  but  the 
maintenance  of  the  law  and  obedience  to  it  are  the  end  or  aim  of 
punishment.  The  law  does  not  exist  in  order  that  sinners  may 
be  punished,  but  sinners  are  punished  in  order  that  law  may  exist 
and  the  constitution  of  the  moral  system  dependent  on  the  law 
may  be  maintained  and  perpetuated.  The  end  or  aim  of  the 
law  is  the  realization  of  the  universal  love  which  it  requires.  The 
end  or  aim  of  punishment  is  to  prevent  transgression  and  to 
assert,  maintain,  and  vindicate  the  law  of  love  and  the  constitu¬ 
tion,  order,  and  integrity  of  the  moral  system  after  the  law  has 
been  transgressed.  “  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law”  (Rom. 
xiii.  10  ;  1  Tim.  i.  5) . 

Punishment  does  not  accomplish  the  end  of  the  law  for  the 
person  who  has  sinned  and  is  punished.  In  defiance  of  the 
law  of  love  he  has  renounced  God  and  his  neighbor  and  is  mak¬ 
ing  himself  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service.  For  him 
the  law  has  failed  of  its  end ;  it  has  failed  to  restrain  him  from 
sin  and  to  keep  him  in  the  life  of  love.  In  renouncing  God  and 
the  life  of  love  to  all,  he  has  renounced  and  lost  his  own  true 
perfection,  worth  and  well-being.  Punishment  cannot  retrieve 
this  loss.  It  cannot  undo  the  act  and  remove  it  from  his  history, 
nor  bring  to  him  the  perfection,  worth  and  well-being  which, 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


455 


in  defiance  of  the  requirement  of  the  law,  he  has  wilfully  thrown 
away.  It  is  not  the  design  of  punishment  to  effect  this  retrieval. 
What  the  law  failed  to  do  for  the  sinner  by  its  requirement,  it  can¬ 
not  do  for  him  by  its  penalty. 

God,  it  is  true,  is  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself. 
Under  his  redemptive  action  and  influence  the  sinner  may  return 
to  God  in  trust  and  penitence,  may  enter  on  the  life  of  love  and 
therein  on  his  progress  toward  perfection  and  well-being,  and 
so  his  past  sinfulness  may  be  forsaken  by  him  and  forgiven  by 
God.  But  he  is  not  brought  to  repentance  by  the  law  which 
he  has  violated  nor  by  its  penalty  which  he  has  incurred,  but 
by  God’s  gracious  action  redeeming  him  from  condemnation 
under  the  law  and  from  the  dominion  of  sin.1  And  God  forgives 
his  sin  because  in  the  redemption  of  sinners  through  Christ  he 
has  wrought  it  in  such  a  way  that  in  it  he  asserts,  maintains,  and 
vindicates  his  righteous  government  and  the  supreme  authority 
and  immutable  obligation  of  his  law  of  love  in  the  forgiveness  of 
the  trusting  penitent  as  really  as  in  the  punishment  of  the  per¬ 
sistent  sinner.  Even  so  God’s  forgiveness  of  a  sinner  does  not 
annul  the  fact  that  he  has  sinned,  nor  the  actual  privation  and 
suffering  which  he  has  experienced  in  his  sin  or  may  afterwards 
experience  as  a  legitimate  consequence  of  it.  Even  when  at 
last  his  character  shall  be  perfected  in  love,  the  loss  in  all  the 
years  of  his  sin  remains  an  unalterable  fact  and  an  irreparable 
evil.  At  his  conversion  he  is  not  what  he  would  have  been 
had  he  never  sinned,  but  had  lived  in  conformity  with  the  law  of 
love.  In  all  his  subsequent  development  and  growth  he  will 
never  at  any  point  of  time  be  what  he  would  have  been  if  he  had 
not  sinned.  Sin,  which  is  wilful  refusal  to  conform  to  the  law  of 
love,  which  is  selfishness  displacing  love,  is  evil  and  only  evil 
continually,  evil  which  can  never  be  undone.  There  is  no  per¬ 
fection  or  good  in  it  and  none  can  come  out  of  it.  In  sinning 
the  sinner  does  himself  a  wrong  and  brings  on  himself  loss  and 
evil  absolutely  irreparable. 

Equally  irreparable  are  the  loss  of  good  and  the  positive  evil 
which  by  his  evil  influence  he  has  brought  on  others.  In  suffering 
punishment  the  sinner  does  not  make  amends  to  society  for  the 
evil  he  has  inflicted  on  it.  If  a  thief  is  arrested  and  punished 
and  what  he  had  stolen  is  restored  to  the  owner,  this  does 

1  Rom.  vii.  io;  viii.  3,  4 ;  x.  4. 


456  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


not  undo  or  make  amends  for  the  manifold  sufferings  and  evils 
caused  by  the  criminal  in  committing  the  crime  and  for  the 
disturbance  of  the  peace  and  order  of  society  by  the  violation 
of  its  law.  A  single  burglary  causes  anxiety  and  fear  in  the 
homes  in  the  vicinity.  The  assassin  of  President  Lincoln  suf¬ 
fered  the  supreme  penalty  of  the  law,  but  the  evils  resulting  from 
the  assassination  have  been  felt  to  this  day.  When,  recently,  a 
judge  of  the  supreme  court  was  assaulted  in  revenge  for  a  judicial 
decision,  a  quiver  of  fear  and  apprehension  ran  through  all 
the  people,  as  to  the  danger  to  the  whole  fabric  of  society 
indicated  by  such  an  assault  unheard  of  before  in  all  the  history 
of  the  nation.  The  fact  that  the  assailant  was  shot  on  the  spot 
by  an  officer  appointed  to  protect  the  judge  does  not  undo 
the  evil  caused  by  the  fact  that  the  assailant’s  threats  had 
rendered  this  unusual  precaution  necessary,  and  by  all  the  shame¬ 
ful  incidents  and  issues  of  the  crime.  The  same  is  true  of  all 
punishment.  Jt  does  not  remove  the  evils  brought  on  society 
by  the  sin  nor  make  amends  for  the  wrong  done.  The  sin 
and  its  evil  effects  are  facts  of  the  past  which  cannot  be  annulled ; 
and  their  pernicious  results  may  be  still  stretching  forward 
into  the  future.  Even  though  the  sinner  has  repented  of  his 
sin  and  forsaken  it,  its  evil  influences  may  still  be  active  beyond 
the  reach  and  knowledge  of  the  sinner.  There  is  a  persistence 
of  influence  in  the  moral  system  analogous  to  the  persistence  of 
physical  force,  so  that  moral  action  and  character  widen  and 
perpetuate  their  influence  immeasurably. 

We  are  brought  here  back  to  the  essential  principle  that  the 
government  in  punishing  simply  asserts,  maintains,  and  vindicates 
its  authority  and  the  authority  and  obligation  of  law,  and  so 
preserves  the  constitution  and  order  of  society  from  anarchy, 
dissolution,  and  chaos  in  the  presence  of  transgression.  And  God 
in  the  punishment  of  sinners  asserts,  maintains,  and  vindicates 
the  authority  and  the  universal  and  immutable  obligation  of 
the  eternal  law  of  love  after  persons  have  sinned,  and  thus 
maintains  the  integrity  of  the  moral  system  under  the  law  of  love 
and  the  government  of  God.  Punishment  is  the  manifestation 
of  the  law  of  love  as  actually  inviolable  though  violated.  It 
may  be  disobeyed ;  it  cannot  be  broken  down,  nor  deprived 
of  its  authority  and  obligation,  nor  changed  in  its  essential 
requirement ;  and  throughout  the  whole  universe  the  attainment 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


457 


of  true  good  or  well-being  is  possible  only  in  conformity  with 
this  law.  So  Christ  declares,  “  Till  heaven  and  earth  pass  away, 
one  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass  from  the  law,  till  all 
be  fulfilled”  (Matth.  v.  18). 

From  this  point  of  view  we  again  reach  the  conclusion  that 
in  punishment  there  is  nothing  of  the  nature  of  revenge.  The 
law  is  not  the  law  of  retaliation,  an  eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth  for 
a  tooth,  a  rendering  of  evil  for  evil.  It  is  the  law  of  universal 
love.  In  punishing  sinners  God  is  exercising  the  love  which 
the  law  requires  ;  and  is  asserting,  maintaining,  and  vindicating 
its  authority  and  obligation  in  his  treatment  of  those  who  refuse 
to  live  in  conformity  with  its  requirement. 

II.  The  Necessity  of  Punishment.  — The  reasons  or  grounds 
of  the  necessity  of  punishment  have  been  already  suggested 
in  the  definition.  They  must  now  be  set  forth  more  explicitly. 

i.  The  first  ground  or  reason  of  the  necessity  of  the  punish¬ 
ment  of  transgressors  is  the  fact  that  the  law  of  love  is  eternal 
in  the  absolute  Reason. 

An  obvious  reason  why  the  sinner  must  be  punished  presents 
itself  at  once,  that  the  sinner  is  guilty  and  deserves  to  be 
punished.  This  is  true.  But  we  must  search  deeper  and  ask 
what  guilt  is. 

Guilt  and  ill-desert  have  no  meaning  except  in  relation  to  law. 
He  who  violates  just  law  ought  to  be  punished.  This  is  a  native 
and  intuitive  conviction  of  the  human  soul.  And  reason  shows 
that  it  is  true.  It  is  implied  in  the  very  idea  of  law  as  command 
or  categoric  imperative.  The  command  Thou  shalt,  Thou  shalt 
not,  cannot  be  resolved  into  You  may  do  as  you  like.  It  is 
not  a  command  if  it  is  not  enforced  by  penalty  for  disobedience. 
The  law  which  commands  love  to  God  and  to  all  men,  involves 
in  its  essence  as  a  command  that  whoever  refuses  to  live  the 
life  of  love  shall  be  punished  for  his  disobedience.  It  is  involved 
in  the  very  idea  of  law  and  government  that  law  affix  a  penalty 
on  disobedience.  If  no  punishment  is  affixed  by  the  law  on 
transgression,  —  law,  government,  and  the  moral  system  would 
no  longer  exist.  Here  we  must  pursue  our  search  still  further, 
to  find  what  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  law  itself. 

This  we  find  in  the  absolute  Reason.  The  eternal  and  arche¬ 
typal  principles  and  truths  of  absolute  Reason  are  laws  to  the 


458  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


action  of  all  rational  persons.  Law  is  immutable  and  eternal. 
It  is  not  created  by  any  fiat  of  will.  It  is  not  a  constitution 
of  things  independent  of  God.  It  is  eternal  in  God  the  all¬ 
perfect  and  absolute  Reason  ;  and  he  in  all  his  action  obeys 
this  eternal  law.  If  the  universe  is  not  grounded  ultimately 
in  absolute  Reason,  there  is  no  law  regulating  either  its  physical 
or  moral  on-going.  The  only  foundation  of  a  moral  system  or  of 
society  ordered  under  law  is  the  truths,  laws,  and  ideals  immut¬ 
able  and  eternal  in  the  absolute  Reason,  and  the  fact  that 
man,  in  the  likeness  of  God  as  a  rational,  personal  spirit, 
participates  in  the  light  of  the  eternal  Reason  and  is  there¬ 
fore  able  to  “  read  God’s  thoughts  after  him  ”  in  the  evolu¬ 
tion  of  the  physical  universe  and  in  the  constitution  of  man 
and  the  development  of  the  kingdom  of  God, — and  pre¬ 
eminently  in  Christ,  the  revealer  at  once  of  God  in  his  like¬ 
ness  to  man  and  his  love  for  him,  and  of  man  in  the  likeness 
of  God  and  capable  of  affinity  and  union  with  him  in  the  life  of 
universal  love.  The  theory  of  the  universe,  of  the  moral  system, 
of  human  society,  founded  on  this  rock  will  stand.  Any  theory 
founded  on  any  other  foundation  is  like  the  house  founded  on 
the  sand,  and  must  fall. 

Here,  then,  we  reach  the  ultimate  and  absolute  ground  of  the 
necessity  of  punishing  transgressors.  The  demand  that  the  law 
of  love  be  sanctioned  by  the  punishment  of  transgressors  is  the 
eternal,  immutable,  inexorable  demand  of  absolute  Reason.  Sin 
is  eternally  condemned  to  punishment.  As  our  Lord  said  of 
the  sinner  who  believes  not  on  him,  he  “  is  condemned  already  ” 
(John  iii.  18).  Here  we  see  the  atoning  significance  of  God’s 
redemption  of  sinners  through  Christ,  asserting,  maintaining,  and 
vindicating  the  authority  of  the  law  when  the  sinner,  returning  to 
God  in  penitential  and  loving  trust,  is  accepted  in  the  beloved, 
and  receives  the  forgiveness  of  sins  according  to  the  riches  of 
God’s  grace  (Eph.  i.  7,  8).  When  a  sinner  yields  to  God’s 
redeeming  grace  in  Christ,  he  is  saved  from  his  bondage  in  sin, 
he  is  no  longer  under  condemnation,  but  is  restored  to  the  favor 
of  God,  and  God,  so  far  as  is  possible  in  the  nature  of  things, 
remits  the  penalty  of  his  sins.  I  say,  so  far  as  is  possible,  for, 
according  to  the  very  constitution  of  the  universe,  penalty  is 
inseparable  from  sin.  But  God’s  own  redemptive  action  in  Christ 
reconciling  sinners  to  himself,  is  such  that  it  is  as  effectual  in 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


459 


asserting,  maintaining,  and  vindicating  the  authority  of  the  law  of 
love  in  the  redemption  and  forgiveness  of  the  returning  penitent 
as  is  his  action  in  the  continued  condemnation  and  punishment 
of  the  persisting  sinner. 

2.  The  necessity  that  the  law  be  sanctioned  by  the  punish¬ 
ment  of  sinners  is  grounded  in  the  righteousness  of  God.  God’s 
righteousness  is  the  consent  of  his  will  in  his  own  eternal  free 
choice  to  the  truths,  laws,  ideals,  and  ends  of  reason  as  regulative 
of  all  his  action.  It  is  the  eternal  harmony  or  conformity  of  his 
will  with  his  reason  in  his  eternal  free  choice  or  self-determina¬ 
tion.  God  does  not  merely  see  all  that  is  true,  right,  perfect,  and 
good  in  the  eternal  light  of  his  reason,  but  also  in  his  eternal 
character  as  love  he  acts  always  in  accord  with  this  truth  and  law 
for  the  realization  of  this  perfection  and  good.  Thus  both  the 
categoric  imperative  of  the  law  requiring  love,  and  the  condemna¬ 
tion  of  the  guilty,  who  disobey  it,  to  punishment,  are  alike  grounded 
in  the  righteousness  of  God.  If  God  affixes  no  penalty  on  trans¬ 
gression,  he  makes  no  discrimination  between  right  and  wrong, 
between  the  righteous  and  the  unrighteous,  between  those  who 
live  the  life  of  love  and  those  who  live  in  selfishness  ;  he  makes  no 
revelation  of  himself  as  the  righteous  God  asserting,  maintaining, 
and  vindicating  the  law  of  love  as  of  universal  and  inviolable 
authority  and  immutable  obligation.  He  would,  in  fact,  be  no 
longer  God.  The  denial  that  the  law  is  sanctioned  by  punish¬ 
ment  involves  the  denial  that  the  universe  is  ultimately  grounded 
in  absolute  reason,  and  that  in  it  the  righteous  God  is  supreme. 
It  really  involves  atheism. 

3.  The  necessity  of  the  punishment  of  sinners  has  its  ground 
or  reason  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe.  We  have  seen  that 
the  principles  and  laws  eternal  in  the  divine  Reason  are  regula¬ 
tive  of  the  action  of  the  divine  power.  Power,  though  almighty, 
cannot  annul  them  or  give  reality  to  what  is  absurd.  We  have 
seen,  also,  that  therefore  these  archetypal  principles,  laws,  and 
ideals  which  God  is  progressively  expressing  and  realizing  in 
the  finite  universe,  determine  its  constitution  and  development. 
Whoever  disregards  these  eternal  laws  is  not  only  fighting  against 
God,  but  also  against  the  constitution  of  the  universe.  All  the 
powers  of  the  universe,  therefore,  as  it  goes  on  in  accordance 
with  its  unchanging  laws,  combine  to  oppose  and  frustrate  the 
sinner  in  his  evil  designs,  and  to  bring  upon  him  privation  of 


460  the  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


good  and  the  suffering  of  evil.  There  is  no  place  or  time  in  the 
universe  in  which  it  is  possible  for  a  person  to  live  a  life  of  sel¬ 
fishness  and  be  blessed,  or  to  live  a  life  of  universal  love  and  miss 
his  highest  blessedness  and  well-being.  “  The  inevitabilities  are 
always  sapping  every  seeming  prosperity  built  on  a  wrong.  No 
matter  how  you  seem  to  fatten  on  a  crime,  that  can  never  be  good 
for  the  bee  which  is  bad  for  the  swarm.  .  .  .  Strength  enters  just 
as  much  as  the  moral  element  prevails.  The  strength  of  the 
animal  to  eat  and  to  be  luxurious  and  usurp,  is  rudeness  and 
imbecility.  The  law  is,  as  thou  sowest,  thou  shalt  reap.  ...  If 
you  love  and  serve  men,  you  cannot,  by  any  hiding  or  stratagem, 
escape  the  remuneration.  Secret  retributions  are  always  restoring 
the  level,  when  disturbed,  of  the  divine  justice.  It  is  impossible 
to  tilt  the  beam.  All  the  tyrants  and  proprietors  and  monopolists 
of  the  world  in  vain  set  their  shoulders  to  heave  the  bar.  Settles 
forever  the  ponderous  equator  to  its  line,  and  man  and  mote  and 
star  and  sun  must  range  with  it  or  be  pulverized  by  the  recoil.”  1 
Richard  Hooker  says :  “  Good  doth  follow  unto  all  things  by 
observing  the  course  of  their  nature,  and,  on  the  contrary  side, 
evil,  by  not  observing  it.  And  is  it  possible  that,  man  being  not 
only  the  noblest  creature  in  the  world  but  even  a  world  in  himself, 
his  transgressing  the  law  of  his  nature  should  draw  no  manner  of 
harm  after  it?  Yes  ;  tribulation  and  anguish  unto  every  soul  that 
doeth  evil.” 

4.  The  sanction  of  the  law  by  the  punishment  of  transgressors 
is  demanded  by  the  reason  and  conscience  of  man. 

I  use  the  word  conscience  to  denote  the  moral  constitution  of 
man,  —  including  both  the  intellectual  power  of  judgment  in  the 
light  of  reason  on  character  and  conduct,  approving  it  as  right,  or 
disapproving  and  condemning  it  as  wrong,  —  and  the  moral  sen¬ 
timents  or  feelings.  Conscience,  in  this  comprehensive  meaning, 
is  essential  and  inherent  in  the  constitution  of  man  as  rational. 
As  a  person  endowed  with  reason,  man  is  conscious  of  the  uni¬ 
versal  truths  and  laws  of  reason,  and  of  his  obligation  to  act 
in  accordance  with  them  ;  also  of  ideals  of  perfection  and  good 
determined  by  rational  norms,  and  of  his  obligation  to  act  for  the 
realization  of  these  rational  ends.  And  human  reason  cannot 
know  itself  in  its  full  significance  as  reason,  nor  justify  its  trust  in 

1  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  “  The  Sovereignty  of  Ethics,”  N.  Am.  Rev.  vol. 
126,  pp.  407,  409. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


461 


itself  as  such,  without  recognizing  Reason  absolute  and  universal, 
in  whose  light  itself  participates.  In  man’s  knowledge  of  truth 
shines  the  light  of  the  eternal  reason ;  in  his  sense  of  duty  sounds 
the  voice  of  the  eternal  God ;  in  his  love  to  God  and  man  is  the 
glow  of  the  love  that  is  eternal  in  God,  the  dawning  in  the  soul  of 
the  light  and  glory  of  the  eternal  day.  Thus,  in  the  background 
of  his  knowledge  of  himself  as  a  rational  person,  he  finds  God.1 
And  the  conscience  thus  essential  in  the  constitution  of  man  as 
rational,  thus  revealing  the  eternal  Reason  and  speaking  the  com¬ 
mand  of  God  within  the  soul,  declares  the  condemnation  of  sin 
and  the  demand  for  its  punishment  as  clearly  and  forcibly  as  it 
declares  the  law  of  right  and  the  obligation  to  obey  it. 

Through  conscience  a  sinner  judges  himself  as  sinful  and  con¬ 
demns  himself  as  guilty ;  that  is,  as  deserving  punishment ;  and 
thus  judging  and  condemning  himself,  his  feelings  respond  in 
shame,  remorse,  and  terror.  These  are  among  the  most  poig¬ 
nant  and  crushing  of  human  feelings.  They  have  made  men 
crazy ;  they  have  blighted  their  lives ;  they  have  driven  them  to 
despair  and  suicide ;  they  have  compelled  them  to  confess  and 
submit  to  the  penalty.  Criminals  have  even  welcomed  the  pun¬ 
ishment,  and  found  in  it  relief  from  their  anguish,  as  meeting  the 
consciousness  of  guilt  and  the  demand  for  punishment  in  their 
inmost  souls.  Thus,  many  a  criminal,  who  never  heard  of 
Socrates,  has  seen  the  truth  of  his  paradox  in  the  “  Gorgias,”  that 
even  to  the  criminal  it  is  better  to  be  punished  than  to  escape 
unpunished.  On  the  other  hand,  when  one  does  right  or  defends 
truth  and  righteousness  against  opposition,  though  he  stand  alone 
with  God  against  the  popular  public  sentiment,  even  though  he 
be  condemned  to  martyrdom,  his  conscience  justifies  and  approves 
him  and  fills  his  soul  with  a  peculiar  satisfaction  and  joy,  the 
noblest  and  most  divine  which  can  exalt  the  soul  of  man. 

Conscience  also  discerns  wrong-doing  in  another  and  condemns 
it  as  deserving  punishment ;  and  in  the  moral  feelings  it  responds 
to  this  judgment  in  indignation  against  the  wrong-doer,  in  horror 
at  the  evil  wrought  by  the  crime,  and  in  the  desire  that  the 
wicked  shall  not  go  unpunished.  Dr.  Channing  says,  “  We 
must  not  mistake  Christian  love  as  if  it  had  but  one  voice,  that  of 
soft  entreaty.  It  can  speak  in  piercing  and  awful  tones.  There 

1  Socrates  says  that  the  soul  of  man  partakes  of  the  divine.  (Xenophon, 
“Memorabilia,”  Bk.  iv.  chap.  iii.  14.) 


462  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


is  constantly  going  on  in  our  world  a  conflict  between  good  and 
evil.  .  .  .  That  deep  feeling,  which  is  necessary  to  effectual  con¬ 
flict  with  them  and  which  marks  God’s  most  powerful  messengers 
to  mankind,  cannot  breathe  itself  in  soft  and  tender  accents. 
The  deeply  moved  soul  will  speak  strongly,  and  ought  to  speak 
so  as  to  move  and  shake  the  nations.”1 

Conscience,  thus  asserting  the  command  of  the  law,  the  imper¬ 
ative  obligation  to  obey  it,  and  the  just  condemnation  and  pun¬ 
ishment  of  the  wrong-doer,  is  essential  in  the  constitution  of  a 
rational  person.  Thus  the  rational  constitution  of  man  attests 
the  reasonableness,  justice,  and  necessity  of  the  punishment  of 
transgressors. 

This  is  evident  also  from  the  whole  history  of  humanity.  It 
appears  in  the  universal  reverence  of  martyrs  who  have  died  in 
fidelity  to  truth  and  right,  and  of  reformers  who  have  faced  the 
opposition  of  the  highest  human  powers  in  exposing  wickedness, 
have  wrought  great  reformations  and  delivered  men  from  grievous 
oppressions  and  wrongs.  It  is  evident  in  the  fear  of  the  wicked, 
the  dread  of  impending  evil,  the  “  fearful  looking-for  of  judgment 
and  fiery  indignation.”  There  can  be  no  eloquence  in  defence 
of  injustice,  oppression,  and  wrong-doing  as  such.  The  religions, 
the  literature,  the  laws,  and  the  whole. history  of  mankind  recog¬ 
nize  the  authority  and  power  of  conscience  declaring  the  guilt 
and  ill-desert  of  wrong- doers  and  condemning  them  to  just  pun¬ 
ishment.  This  is  strikingly  exemplified  in  the  Greek  tragedians. 
“  These  set  forth  in  immortal  types  and  under  the  most  pathetic 
forms  all  the  sacred  sorrows  of  the  conscience  and  all  its  lofty 
hopes,  tempering  its  dread  of  eternal  justice  by  intuitions  of  the 
divine  pity  yearning  to  restore.  Never  upon  pagan  soil  did  the 
moral  law  shine  with  a  lustre  at  once  so  pure  and  terrible.  Never 
was  the  divine  idea  invested  with  such  sanctity.  Never  were  the 
need  and  hope  of  expiation  expressed  in  nobler  lyric  strains,  or 
in  dramatic  creations  so  grand  and  lifelike.  Greek  tragedy  is  the 
very  drama  of  human  destiny,  with  its  mysteries,  conflicts,  terrors, 
and  with  its  inspired  intuition  of  a  deliverance  equal  to  its  need.”  2 
In  this  condemnation  of  the  sinner  to  deserved  punishment  the 
common  sentiments  of  mankind  concur.  “  Children  always  re¬ 
joice  at  the  overthrow  of  Pharaoh  and  the  punishment  of  Haman. 

1  Works,  1843,  vol.  i.  pp.  24,  25. 

2  Pressense,  “The  Ancient  World  and  Christianity,”  Transl.  p.  329. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


4<53 


The  uncivilized  inhabitants  of  Mehta  believed  that  the  viper  on 
Paul’s  hand  was  sent  to  punish  him  for  murder.  Philosophy,  law, 
and  religion,  epics,  lyrics,  and  tragedy  teach  the  necessity  of  the 
punishment  of  the  wicked.  The  source  of  perplexity  through  the 
ages  has  been  the  fact  that  in  the  actual  course  of  human  life 
God  apparently  does  not  uniformly  punish  sin ;  the  wicked 
prosper  and  the  good  are  in  adversity.  From  the  days  of  Job 
until  now  the  anxious  question  has  been,  ‘  Wherefore  do  the 
wicked  live,  become  old,  yea,  are  mighty  in  power  ?  ’  And 
always  relief  has  been  found  when  it  has  been  made  clear  that 
God  will  award  them  just  retribution.  What  a  grand  chorus  of 
the  ages  is  here ;  the  voices  of  children,  of  savages,  and  of 
civilized  men,  of  poets,  philosophers,  law-givers,  and  statesmen, 
of  prophets  and  apostles,  all  generations  standing  with  hands 
uplifted  to  God,  crying  that  wickedness  may  not  be  committed 
with  impunity ;  —  ‘for  the  crying  of  the  needy,  for  the  oppression 
of  the  poor,  arise,  O  Lord,  and  render  into  the  bosom  of  the 
wicked  the  reproach  wherewith  they  have  reproached  thee.’ 
And  from  the  holy  heaven  opened  to  John  issues  the  voice  of  the 
martyrs  slain  by  triumphant  wickedness  :  ‘  How  long,  O  Lord, 
holy  and  true,  dost  thou  not  judge  and  avenge  our  blood  on  them 
who  dwell  on  the  earth?’  How  grand  a  chorus  !  How  august 
a  company  !  But  here  comes  a  solitary  form,  the  pale  offspring 
of  modern  sentimentality,  its  consumptive  frame  nursed  on  what 
John  Randolph  called  the  ass’s  milk  of  human  kindness,  and  lifts 
alone  its  solitary  hands  and  voice  :  ‘To  me  the  perplexity  is  that 
God  does  punish  the  wicked.  Oh  for  a  God  who  never  punishes 
a  transgressor  !  Oh  for  a  God  of  undiscriminating  tenderness  and 
leniency,  who  leaves  wickedness  unscathed  in  its  triumph,  and 
gives  it  equal  reward  with  righteousness  !  ’  ”  1 

Professor  Alexander  Bain  teaches,  as  others  had  taught  before, 
that  conscience  is  not  a  constitutional  characteristic  of  man  as  a 
rational  person,  but  that  it  has  been  created  by  the  infliction  of 
punishment.  “  The  imposition  of  punishment  is  the  distinctive 
property  of  acts  held  to  be  morally  wrong.  .  .  .  Morality  is  an 
Institution  of  Society  maintained  by  the  authority  and  punish¬ 
ments  of  Society.  .  .  .  Every  one,  not  of  himself  disposed  to 
follow  the  rules  prescribed  by  the  major  part  of  the  community, 
is  subjected  to  some  infliction  of  pain  to  supply  the  absence  of 

1  Prof.  Samuel  Harris,  “The  Kingdom  of  Christ  on  Earth,”  pp.  35,  36. 


464  the  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


other  motives,  the  infliction  increasing  in  severity  until  obedience 
is  attained.  It  is  the  familiarity  with  this  regime  of  compulsion 
and  of  suffering  constantly  increasing,  that  plants  in  the  infant 
and  youthful  mind  the  first  germ  of  the  sense  of  obligation.  .  .  . 
The  sense  of  obligation  has  no  other  universal  property  except 
the  ideal  and  actual  avoidance  of  conduct  prohibited  by  penal¬ 
ties.  .  .  .  The  imposition  of  penalties  begets  at  once  the  sense 
and  avoidance  of  the  forbidden  and  the  awe  of  authority,  and 
this  is  retained  through  life  as  the  basis  of  the  individual  con¬ 
science,  the  ever  foremost  motive  to  abstain  from  actions  desig¬ 
nated  as  wrong.  .  .  .  Instead  of  responsibility  I  shall  substitute 
punishability.”  1  It  follows  that  there  is  no  essential  difference 
between  right  and  wrong ;  that  there  are  no  distinctively  moral 
motives  of  action ;  that  if  a  person  obeys  the  law,  it  will  not  be 
done  from  any  love  to  men  or  regard  for  their  rights,  or  from  any 
desire  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  community,  but  solely  be¬ 
cause  the  majority  who  have  made  the  law  will  force  him  to 
submit  by  inflicting  penalties  more  and  more  severe  until  he 
yields  to  the  superior  force ;  and  that  in  all  moral  actions  there 
is  no  motive  more  noble  or  more  worthy  of  admiration  than  the 
fear  of  suffering  inflicted  by  a  superior  force ;  the  motive  of  a 
slave  compelled  by  the  whip.  The  further  question  arises,  How 
came  there  to  be  a  government  enacting  laws  and  inflicting  pen¬ 
alties  for  disobedience?  The  supposition  is  that  there  are  no 
moral  principles  regulating  action  until  they  have  been  gradually 
created  by  the  infliction  of  punishment ;  that  there  is  no  conscience 
in  any  person,  no  sense  of  obligation,  until  it  has  been  developed 
by  punishment.  Whence  then  came  the  government,  the  law, 
and  the  infliction  of  punishment?  There  can  be  but  one  answer. 
The  origin  of  government,  law,  and  punishment  can  be  only  in 
superior  force.  Thus  comes  the  brutal  theory  that  government 
and  law  are  merely  expedients  of  the  stronger  to  keep  from  the 
weaker  what  by  superior  strength  they  have  grasped.  This  over¬ 
throws  all  conception,  not  only  of  God’s  government,  but  also 
of  all  just  government  and  even  of  justice  and  right.  The  very 
idea  of  right  and  wrong  becomes  an  illusion  created  by  the  suc¬ 
cessive  blows  of  the  strong,  who  have  taken  possession,  smiting 
the  weaker  who  try  to  participate  in  the  advantages  grasped  by 
the  strong.  This  must  be  so,  for  if  any  antecedent  law,  justice, 

1  “The  Emotions  and  the  Will,”  pp.  254,  257,  481,  482,  483,  520. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


465 


or  right  is  presupposed,  the  whole  theory  breaks  down.  There 
is  no  identity  or  resemblance  of  the  rational  sense  of  obliga¬ 
tion  or  duty  and  the  fear  of  punishment.  On  the  contrary,  a 
person  of  integrity  and  virtuous  character  does  his  duty  and  fulfils 
his  obligations  without  even  a  thought  of  the  punishment  of 
transgressors. 

If  any  Hedonistic  theory  of  morals  is  accepted  with  Leslie 
Stephen’s  definition  that  “  morality  is  a  statement  of  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  social  welfare,”  then  it  is  evident  that  there  is  no  place 
for  the  distinctive  ideas  of  duty,  obligation,  and  law,  and  morality 
in  its  distinctive  meaning  is  displaced  by  expediency.  Then  we 
may  agree  with  Mr.  Stephen  in  his  teaching  that  conscience,  as 
autonomic  in  the  constitution  of  man  as  rational,  is  “  part  of  an 
obsolete  form  of  speculation.”  1  If  the  theory  is  accepted  that 
sin  is  essential  to  a  person’s  discipline  and  development,  sin 
ceases  to  be  recognized  as  essential  evil  and  must  be  regarded  as 
relatively  good,  as  good  in  its  necessary  process  of  development. 
If  the  materialistic  theory  is  accepted,  that  sin  is  a  disease  and 
therefore  the  so-called  sinner  does  not  deserve  punishment  but 
needs  only  curative  treatment,  all  distinct  moral  ideas  are  ex¬ 
cluded.  And  so  all  theories  which  imply  the  denial  of  the 
ill-desert  of  transgressors,  and  of  the  just  demand  for  their  punish¬ 
ment,  involve  the  total  denial  of  moral  distinctions  and  of  all 
moral  obligation,  law,  and  government.  Nevertheless  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  moral  distinctions  is  not  derived  from  the  fact  of 
punishment,  but  the  existence  and  necessity  of  punishment 
are  derived  from  the  eternal  existence  of  law  and  of  moral 
distinctions. 

5.  Punishment  is  necessary  for  the  practical  ends  subserved  by 
it,  which  have  been  already  pointed  out.  While  these  are  not 
the  primary  or  only  grounds  of  the  necessity  of  the  punishment 
of  transgressors,  they  are  real  and  important  reasons  which  must 
be  taken  into  account  in  justifying  it.2 

• 

1  “  Science  of  Ethics,”  chap.  vi.  41  ;  chap.  viii.  4  ;  pp.  217,  314. 

2  “  Punishment  is  a  celestial  being,  created  by  the  gods  to  insure  to  all 
the  possession  of  their  rights.  ...  It  is  a  king  full  of  courage,  of  sombre  hue 
but  keen  eye,  that  governs  the  human  race,  protecting  the  feeble  against  the 
strong.  It  would  strike  even  the  king  if  he  strayed  from  the  path  of  duty. 

.  .  .  Justice  strikes  when  it  is  wounded,  and  protects  when  it  is  maintained.” 
(Laws  of  Manu,  quoted  by  Pressense,  “The  Ancient  World  and  Chris¬ 
tianity,”  Transl.  p.  207.) 

vol.  11.  —  30 


466  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


III.  The  Penalty.  —  We  are  now  to  consider  in  what  the 
penalty  consists  which  God  inflicts  on  the  sinner  in  punishing 
him  for  his  sins.  On  this  subject  it  becomes  us  to  speak  with 
profound  consciousness  of  the  limitations  of  our  knowledge. 
Some  points,  however,  seem  to  be  clear  and  indisputable,  and  to 
these  I  confine  my  statements.  We  are  not  discussing  here  the 
facts  of  eschatology,  but  simply  the  ethics  of  punishment. 

i.  The  penalty  consists  primarily  of  the  sinner’s  alienation  of 
himself  from  God  and  the  privation  and  evil  which  this  involves. 

In  the  first  place,  in  his  renunciation  of  God  as  the  supreme 
object  of  trust  and  service,  the  sinner  puts  himself  in  direct  antag¬ 
onism  to  God.  The  essence  of  his  sinful  character  is  his  choice 
of  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service.  In  this  choice 
he  is  in  his  inmost  character,  which  is  selfishness,  in  direct  an¬ 
tagonism  to  the  character  of  God,  which  is  universal  love.  He 
also  renounces  allegiance  to  God’s  authority,  government,  and 
law.  His  activity  in  getting,  possessing,  and  using  for  self  is  the 
direct  contrary  of  the  activity  of  God,  who  opens  his  hand  and  all 
creatures  are  filled  with  good.  And  the  selfish  ends  to  which  he 
directs  his  energies  are  contrary  to  the  ends  for  which  God  acts  in 
establishing  his  kingdom  and  the  reign  of  wisdom  and  love.  In 
renouncing  God  he  renounces  the  absolute  and  perfect  Reason  as 
the  guide  of  life  and  puts  himself  into  antagonism  to  all  rational 
truth  and  law  and  to  the  realization  of  all  rational  ends  of  perfec¬ 
tion  and  well-being.  It  is  the  total  revolt  of  the  creature  against 
the  creator.  The  character  developed  is,  as  the  scriptures  describe 
it,  “enmity  against  God  ”  (Rom.  viii.  7). 

The  sinner’s  alienation  from  God  implies  also  that  he  excludes 
from  within  his  soul  all  gracious  influences  of  God’s  Spirit.  The 
normal  condition  of  a  finite  person  is  in  union  with  God.  As 
dependent  on  God  he  can  realize  the  highest  possibilities  of  his 
being  only  as  he  becomes  receptive  of  God’s  gracious  influences 
through  faith  or  trust  in  him.  God  is  man’s  spiritual  environment ; 
“in  him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.”  A  finite  per¬ 
son  cannot  be  developed  into  right  character  nor  attain  his  true 
perfection,  power,  and  well-being,  except  as  he  continually  re¬ 
ceives  spiritual  quickening  and  nourishment  from  God.  This  he 
receives  by  his  own  willing  faith  or  trust  in  God,  in  which  he 
opens  his  soul  to  God,  as  a  flower  opens  to  the  sun,  to  receive 
and  assimilate  all  his  divine  and  gracious  influences.  This  is  true 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


467 


of  all  finite  persons  from  the  highest  angel  to  the  weakest  child  ; 
it  is  true  of  the  holy  ones  in  heaven  not  less  than  of  sinners  on 
earth ;  their  right  character,  perfection,  and  well-being  are  pos¬ 
sible  only  as  they  willingly  open  their  hearts  to  receive  the  divine 
influences  in  continuous  trust  or  faith  in  God,  and  willingly  follow 
the  divine  drawing.  In  the  supreme  choice  of  self,  which  is  the 
essence  of  sinful  character,  the  sinner  renounces  God  as  the  su¬ 
preme  object  of  trust  and  service ;  therein  he  repudiates  his  own 
condition  as  a  creature  and  dependent  on  God,  and  sets  himself 
up  as  the  centre  of  all  his  interests,  the  supreme  end  of  all  his 
activity,  and  sufficient  for  himself  in  forming  and  executing  all  his 
plans.  Thus  he  closes  all  the  avenues  through  which  the  heavenly 
influences  can  enter  his  soul  and  separates  himself  from  God. 
Then  the  divine  Spirit  is  shut  out  from  the  soul.  In  biblical 
phrases,  he  is  resisted,  grieved,  quenched,  taken  away.  God’s 
gracious  disposition  toward  the  sinner  does  not  change.  The 
same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever,  he  always  “  willeth  that  all  men 
should  be  saved  and  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth”  (1  Tim. 
ii.  4).  His  heavenly  influences  press  upon  the  resisting  sinner,  like 
water  against  an  embankment,  seeking  at  every  point  for  some 
opening,  entering  every  crevice  however  small,  and  working  there 
to  find  its  way  through.  They  are  like  the  sunshine  and  the  at¬ 
mosphere  encompassing  alike  the  living  plants  receptive  of  their 
quickening  and  nourishing  influence,  and  the  dead  ones  which 
reject  them  and  by  these  same  agencies  are  only  hastened  in  their 
decay.  But  the  heavenly  influence  is  no  longer  within,  quickening 
the  spiritual  life  of  love,  but  outside  ;  as  the  Bible  represents  the 
Spirit,  he  stands  at  the  door  and  knocks,  shut  out  by  the  sinner’s 
wilful  alienation  of  himself  from  God,  in  self-sufficiency,  self-will, 
self-glorifying,  and  self-seeking.  And  because  he  has  thus  closed 
all  avenues  in  his  soul  for  the  reception  of  the  divine  influences 
environing  him,  he  must  wither  and  decay  in  moral  and  religious 
character,  as  inevitably  as  a  plant  when  pulled  up  by  the  roots. 
Its  environment  continues  to  encompass  it,  but  the  plant  is  no 
longer  receptive  of  its  quickening  and  nourishing  influence.  This 
is  the  very  analogy  which  our  Saviour  used  :  “  As  the  branch  can¬ 
not  bear  fruit  of  itself  except  it  abide  in  the  vine,  no  more  can  ye 
except  ye  abide  in  me.  If  a  man  abide  not  in  me,  he  is  cast 
forth  as  a  branch  and  is  withered  ;  and  they  gather  them  and  cast 
them  into  the  fire  and  they  are  burned”  (John  xv.  1-8).  The 


468  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


result  of  this  wilful  alienation  from  God  must  be  moral  and  spirit¬ 
ual  corruption  and  decay,  the  failure  to  realize  the  true  ends  of 
existence,  the  loss  of  all  that  constitutes  true  perfection  and  well¬ 
being,  —  in  a  word,  a  lost  soul. 

By  his  wilful  alienation  from  God  the  sinner  is  excluded  from 
all  access  to  God  and  communion  with  him.  Prayer  is  the  utter¬ 
ance  of  faith  or  trust  in  God.  But  the  sinner  in  his  self-sufficiency 
and  self-will  has  renounced  God  and  has  no  faith  or  trust  in  him. 
Therefore  he  cannot  pray  to  God.  On  the  other  hand  he  resists 
and  refuses  all  the  gracious  influences  of  God  seeking  to  draw  him 
to  himself.  Therefore  God  is  shut  out  from  fellowship  and  union 
with  him.  It  is  not  that  God  is  no  longer  graciously  disposed 
toward  the  sinner.  He  is  seeking  the  sinner  to  draw  him  to  him¬ 
self ;  he  is  waiting  that  he  may  be  gracious  (Isa.  xxx.  18)  ;  he  is 
ready  to  receive  every  sinner  who  yields  to  his  gracious  drawing, 
returns  to  him  in  penitence  and  trusts  his  grace ;  there  is  sal¬ 
vation  to  the  uttermost  unto  all  who  return  to  God  in  Christ.  But 
it  is  the  sinner’s  wilful  alienation  of  himself  from  God ;  and  it  is 
the  impossibility  of  God’s  receiving  any  one  who  resists  his  gra¬ 
cious  drawing,  who  will  not  come  to  him  ;  the  impossibility  of 
God’s  dwelling  in  any  soul  and  carrying  on  in  it  his  work  of  reno¬ 
vation,  purification,  and  development,  while  the  man  repudiates 
his  dependence  on  God  and  his  need  of  his  grace  and  resists  and 
excludes  him  from  his  soul  when  he  approaches  with  his  gracious 
influences.  “  Behold,  the  Lord’s  hand  is  not  shortened  that  it 
cannot  save ;  neither  his  ear  heavy  that  it  cannot  hear ;  but  your 
iniquities  have  separated  between  you  and  your  God,  and  your 
sins  have  hid  his  face  from  you  that  he  will  not  hear”  (Isa.  lix. 
i).  Here  is  a  complete  interruption  of  communion  with  God 
and  a  complete  separation  from  him.  Religion  is  in  its  es¬ 
sence  communion  with  God ;  it  is  trust  in  God  and  service 
rendered  to  him.  In  renouncing  God  as  the  supreme  object  of 
trust  and  service,  the  sinner  renounces  all  communion  and  fel¬ 
lowship  with  God,  and  therein  all  religion.  Persisting  in  sin  he  is 
“  having  no  hope  and  without  God  in  the  world”  (Eph.  ii.  12). 
The  final  sentence,  “  Depart,”  only  declares  the  reality  and  per¬ 
petuity  of  that  alienation  and  separation  from  God,  and  therein 
from  all  perfection  and  well-being,  which  the  sinner  by  his  own 
free  and  persistent  choice  has  effected  in  his  wilful  renunciation 
of  God  and  resistance  of  all  his  gracious  influence,  and  has  persisted 
in  through  all  his  life. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


469 


The  sinner’s  alienation  from  God  implies,  further,  that  he  is  the 
object  of  God’s  condemnation  and  displacency.  As  the  Bible 
expresses  it,  he  is  under  the  curse  of  the  law,  under  the  wrath  of 
God  which  cometh  on  the  children  of  disobedience  and  is  revealed 
against  all  unrighteousness  of  men  ;  and  the  final  doom  is,  Depart 
from  me,  ye  cursed.1  This  is  not  a  judgment  pronounced  merely 
once  and  ended.  It  is  a  continuous  judgment  and  a  continuous 
condemnation.  So  our  Lord  declared  :  “  He  who  believeth  not 
hath  been  judged  already ;  the  wrath  of  God  abideth  on  him  ” 
(John  iii.  18,  36).  And  the  gospel  of  Christ  is  represented  as  a 
winnowing  fan,  continuously  separating  the  chaff  from  the  wheat 
(Matth.  iii.  12).  On  the  sinner  persisting  in  sin  God  in  the  ex¬ 
ercise  of  his  wisdom  and  love  cannot  bestow  his  approval  or  his 
blessing.  God  does  not  give  or  withhold  blessings  by  decree  of 
arbitrary  sovereignty  unregulated  by  law ;  but  only  in  harmony 
with  the  truth  and  law  eternal  in  the  absolute  Reason,  by  which 
the  constitution  and  evolution  of  the  universe  are  determined. 
When  a  government,  regardless  of  the  laws  of  finance,  arbitrarily 
decrees  that  slips  of  paper  representing  no  real  value  shall  be 
money,  we  call  it  in  ridicule  fiat  money ;  and  history  has  shown 
again  and  again  the  impotence  of  the  decree.  And  men  demand 
fiat  blessings,  that  God  in  his  resistless  almightiness  should  decree 
well-being  to  sinners  persisting  in  sin.  This  is  an  idle  imagina¬ 
tion.  The  universe  is  constituted  and  goes  on  under  law.  All 
beings  and  powers  in  the  universe,  from  the  ultimate  atoms  to  the 
highest  order  of  rational  persons,  are  under  the  eternal  and  immut¬ 
able  law  of  absolute  Reason.  In  accordance  with  this  law  the 
universe  is  constituted,  perpetuated,  and  developed.  So  Words¬ 
worth  represents  it  in  his  “  Ode  to  Duty  ”  :  — 

“  Stern  Lawgiver !  yet  thou  dost  wear 
The  Godhead’s  most  benignant  grace ; 

Nor  know  we  anything  so  fair 
As  is  the  smile  upon  thy  face ; 

Flowers  laugh  before  thee  on  their  beds, 

And  fragrance  in  thy  footing  treads  ; 

Thou  dost  preserve  the  stars  from  wrong, 

And  the  most  ancient  heavens,  through  thee,  are  fresh  and  strong.” 

No  power,  though  almighty,  can  annul  these  principles  and  laws. 
1  he  whole  moral  system  is  constituted  under  the  eternal  and  im- 

1  Gal.  iii.  10;  Eph.  v.  6;  Col.  iii.  6;  Rom.  i.  18;  Matth.  xxv.  41. 


470  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


mutable  law  of  love.  In  a  system  thus  constituted,  no  power, 
though  almighty,  can  impart  blessedness  or  well- being  to  a  person 
persisting  in  selfishness,  or  avert  evil  from  him.  In  all  the  re¬ 
sources  of  God’s  wisdom  and  love  there  is  no  blessing  for  such  a 
person  ;  but  only  the  curse  of  the  law,  “  indignation  and  wrath? 
tribulation,  and  anguish  upon  every  soul  of  man  who  doeth  evil  ” 
(Rom.  ii.  8,  9). 

Thus  the  penalty  is  primarily  in  the  sinner’s  wilful  alienation  of 
himself  from  God  and  the  privation  of  good  and  the  positive  evil 
which  are  involved  in  it.  Here  the  difficulty  is  to  name  any  real 
good  of  which  the  sinner  is  not  deprived  or  any  essential  evil 
which  he  does  not  incur  in  his  alienation  of  himself  from  God. 
As  Augustine  says  :  “  To  be  lost  out  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  to 
be  an  exile  from  the  city  of  God,  to  be  alienated  from  the  life  of 
God,  to  have  no  share  in  that  great  goodness  of  God  which  he 
hath  laid  up  for  them  who  fear  him,  is  so  great  a  punishment  that, 
supposing  it  to  be  eternal,  no  torment  that  we  know,  though  con¬ 
tinued  through  as  many  ages  as  man’s  imagination  can  conceive, 
can  be  compared  with  it.  There  will,  therefore,  continue  without 
end  that  eternal  death  of  the  wicked,  that  is,  their  alienation  from 
God  ;  and  this  will  be  common  to  all,  whatever  men,  according  to 
their  human  feelings,  may  imagine  concerning  variety  of  punish¬ 
ment  or  concerning  relief  or  intermission  of  pain.”  2 

2.  The  penalty  consists  also  in  the  disorder  and  depravation 
of  the  man  himself,  and  the  privation  and  evil  which  come  therein 
on  the  sinner  in  accordance  with  the  constitution  of  man. 

In  the  first  place,  as  we  have  seen  that  sin  brings  a  person  into 
conflict  with  God,  so  it  brings  him  also  into  conflict  with  himself. 
However  completely  he  may  give  himself  up  to  a  life  of  sin,  he 
will  always  be  in  conflict  with  his  own  reason  and  conscience. 
His  sinful  choices  and  volitions,  his  sinful  desires  and  passions, 
his  ruling  purposes  and  plans,  his  character  in  its  supreme  bent, 
will  be  in  direct  conflict  with  these  highest  and  authoritative 
powers  of  his  spirit.  However  eagerly  and  successfully  he  may 
work  in  his  sinful  course  of  life,  there  is  always  in  the  background 
of  his  consciousness  the  overawing  forms  of  these  regents  of  the 
soul,  authoritatively  forbidding  all  which  he  is  so  eagerly  doing, 
and  condemning  him  as  guilty.  And  in  hours  of  solitude  and 
reflection  he  may  feel  the  bitterness  of  remorse.  So  Browning 

2  Enchiridion,  chap.  112,  113. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


471 


has  pictured  a  poor  girl  in  the  sense  of  sin  crying  in  anguish, 
“  There  may  be  a  heaven,  there  must  be  a  hell.” 

Not  only  is  there  conflict  between  the  sinful  propensities  and 
purposes  and  the  conscience  ;  but  also  the  appetites,  desires,  and 
passions,  when  not  regulated  by  reason,  are  in  conflict  with  each 
other.  The  gratifying  of  one  requires  the  denial  of  many  others. 
Hence,  even  in  the  life  of  self-seeking  and  self-indulgence,  there 
must  be  continual  self-conflict  and  continual  self-denial,  and 
always  more  desires  must  be  denied  and  repressed  than  can  be 
gratified.  Thus  the  prophet’s  declaration  is  true  for  all  time  : 
“The  wicked  are  like  the  troubled  sea;  for  it  cannot  rest,  and  its 
waters  cast  up  mire  and  dirt.  There  is  no  peace,  saith  my  God, 
to  the  wicked  ”  (Isa.  lvii.  20). 

Selfishness  also  aims  to  obtain  happiness  by  getting  for  self,  by 
self-indulgence  in  the  gratification  of  desires.  But  desire  is  an 
uneasiness  in  the  sense  of  want,  and  it  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on. 
Therefore  there  are  always  restlessness  and  painfulness  in  their 
exercise,  and  either  disappointment  of  their  object,  or  disappoint¬ 
ment  in  it  if  attained.  The  theory  that  this  is  the  way  to  well¬ 
being  issues  in  pessimism  ;  the  actual  living  according  to  the 
theory  involves  continual  restlessness  and  dissatisfaction,  and 
issues  in  despair.  Life  is  an  illusion,  and  when  the  illusion  is  dis¬ 
pelled,  life  is  seen  to  be  not  worth  living.  Man  being  spirit  in 
the  likeness  of  God,  is  made  for  the  higher  spiritual  ends,  for 
the  life  of  love  to  God  and  man  in  trust  and  service.  He  can 
never  be  contented  and  satisfied  with  any  attainment  in  the  life 
of  selfishness. 

The  life  of  sin  issues  also  in  the  corruption,  disorder,  and  depra¬ 
vation  of  the  soul.  Plato  represents  the  soul  after  death  appear¬ 
ing  naked  before  the  judge,  Rhadamanthus,  or  AEacus,  or  Minos. 
There  is  nothing  to  indicate  the  rank,  condition,  or  history  of  the 
person,  whether  a  king  or  a  beggar,  when  in  the  body.  The 
judge  simply  examines  the  soul  itself  and  pronounces  judgment 
according  as  he  sees  it  to  be  sound  and  healthy,  or  marred  by  sin, 
—  normally  developed,  or  perverted  and  degenerated.1  This  sym¬ 
bolizes  a  profound  truth.  The  body  of  a  child  fair  in  face  and 
form  may  become  in  later  years,  by  dissipation  and  vice,  bloated, 
gross,  bestial,  disgusting.  An  analogous  depravation  is  wrought 
in  the  soul  of  a  man  by  a  life  of  sin.  Could  the  soul  suddenly 

1  Gorgias,  523. 


472  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


make  itself  visible,  so  that  we  could  see  at  a  glance  the  scathing 
influence  of  a  sinful  life  upon  it,  the  spectacle  would  be  more 
affecting  than  that  of  the  ravages  of  sin  on  the  body.  The  sim¬ 
plicity  of  the  soul  in  childhood  has  been  seamed  with  cunning,  its 
credulity  corrugated  and  stiffened  into  skepticism,  its  blushing 
modesty  bronzed  in  impudence,  its  affections  soured  into  mis¬ 
anthropy,  and  the  whole  soul  seared  and  furrowed  by  manifold 
transgressions.  Sin  disorders  it  in  all  its  susceptibilities  and  powers. 
It  embitters  the  memory,  defiles  the  imagination,  troubles  the  con¬ 
science,  inflames  and  disorders  the  desires,  makes  habits  into 
chains  and  fetters,  turns  every  faculty  and  susceptibility  into  an 
instrument  of  torture,  and  the  sinful  soul,  by  its  own  action,  is 
deteriorated  into  moral  corruption  aud  rottenness.  By  action  a 
person  is  always  forming  or  confirming  character.  The  soul 
of  the  miser  is  as  really  pinched  and  shrivelled  by  his  penurious¬ 
ness  as  is  his  body.  The  soul  of  the  worldling,  according  to  the 
terrible  language  of  the  Bible,  is  scathed  by  its  worldliness,  and 
the  rust  of  his  gold  and  silver  eats  as  it  were  fire.  The  soul  of 
the  debauchee  rivals  his  body  in  rottenness  :  “  Their  heart  is  as 
fat  as  grease  ”  ;  “  even  their  mind  and  conscience  are  defiled  ” 
(Psalm  cxix.  70;  Tit.  i.  15).  Could  we  see  the  sinner’s  soul, 
we  should  see  it  festering  and  gangrened  with  pride,  impenitence, 
and  selfishness,  the  vital  powers  of  virtue  decaying,  pernicious 
desires  eating  like  cancers,  baleful  passions  swollen  and  inflamed, 
and  “  from  the  sole  of  the  foot  even  unto  the  head,  no  soundness 
in  it,  but  wounds  and  bruises  and  putrefying  sores.”  Who  can 
look  on  such  a  soul  in  contrast  with  the  soul  made  perfect  in  love 
in  the  likeness  of  Christ  without  exclaiming,  “  How  art  thou  fallen 
from  heaven,  O  son  of  the  morning  !  ”  And  it  is  the  sinner  him¬ 
self  who,  by  his  own  chosen  course  of  life,  brings  the  woe  and 
ruin  on  himself.  By  his  own  action  through  life  in  which  he  has 
been  eagerly  engaged,  he  has  been,  as  Paul  expresses  it,  treasur¬ 
ing  up  unto  himself  wrath  against  the  day  of  wrath  and  revelation 
of  the  righteous  judgment  of  God,  who  will  render  to  every  man 
according  to  his  deeds.  So  the  ancient  prophets  express  it : 
“  They  have  rewarded  evil  unto  themselves  ”  ;  “  thine  own  wick¬ 
edness  shall  correct  thee,  and  thy  backslidings  shall  reprove  thee  ” 
(Isa.  iii.  9  ;  Jerem.  ii.  19). 

This  depravation  of  the  soul  issues  in  what  is  called  death  in 
sin.  The  higher  powers  and  susceptibilities  are  enslaved  to  the 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


473 


lower ;  the  spiritual  is  submerged  and  drowned  in  the  sensual, 
smothered  in  the  flesh ;  some  propensities  are  paralyzed,  others 
fevered ;  the  intellect  is  beclouded  by  prejudice,  the  conscience 
seared  as  with  a  hot  iron,  the  sinner’s  will  has  determined  itself  to 
the  life  of  sin,  choosing  evil  and  refusing  good.  Thus  he  has 
become  dead  to  the  higher  spiritual  motives  and  interests,  and 
alive  to  the  sensual,  worldly,  and  selfish.  As  our  Saviour  says,  he 
cannot  even  see  the  kingdom  of  God.  He  sees  nothing  attrac¬ 
tive  in  the  life  of  love,  in  the  service  of  God  and  man;  it  is 
repulsive  to  him  ;  he  has  no  desire  for  it  as  good,  but  shuns  it  as 
evil.  Thus  he  is  shut  up  to  the  life  of  selfishness  and  sin  as  his 
only  portion,  and  to  its  pleasures  as  the  only  good  ;  as  a  cater¬ 
pillar  is  shut  up  by  the  threads  issuing  from  its  own  body  to  the 
perishing  leaf  on  which  it  feeds,  or  the  shell-fish  to  the  rock  beneath 
the  water.  His  whole  being  is  perverted.  He  chooses  as  good 
what  is  really  evil,  and  refuses  as  evil  what  is  the  only  true  good. 
Were  he  in  heaven,  he  would  be  miserable,  and  would  flee  from 
it,  for  “all  that  life  is  love.”  All  good  to  him  is  lost;  evil  is 
chosen  as  his  only  good. 

Here  we  must  notice  the  law  of  continuity  of  character  in  the 
moral  system,  analogous  to  the  law  of  the  persistence  of  force. 
By  continued  action  in  accordance  with  his  character,  whether 
right  or  wrong,  a  person  is  progressively  confirming  the  character. 
Every  act  he  does,  every  feeling  he  indulges,  is  strengthening 
invisible  chains  which  bind  him,  and  make  it  more  necessary  for 
him  to  continue  in  the  same  character.  This  confirmation  of 
character  sooner  or  later  becomes  so  complete  that  the  person 
becomes  insensible  to  all  moral  motives  to  a  change.  When  a 
sinner  has  brought  himself  to  this  decisive  confirmation  of  char¬ 
acter,  he  is  separated  finally  and  hopelessly  from  God  ;  he  has 
excluded  from  himself  susceptibility  to  the  heavenly  influences  of 
God’s  redeeming  grace  and  put  himself  beyond  their  reach. 

“  We  shape  ourselves  the  joy  or  fear, 

Of  which  the  coming  life  is  made, 

And  fill  our  future’s  atmosphere 
With  sunshine  or  with  shade.” 

Nor  is  there  any  reason  to  anticipate  that  this  law  of  the  con¬ 
firmation  of  character  by  action  in  conformity  with  it  will  be  sus¬ 
pended  at  death.  It  is  part  of  a  wider  law  which,  throughout 
God’s  government,  binds  the  future  to  the  present  and  the  pres- 


474  THE  LORD  of  all  in  moral  government 


ent  to  the  past.  It  is  not  only,  as  Wordsworth  says,  “  The  child 
is  father  of  the  man,”  but  throughout  all  moral  action,  the  pres¬ 
ent  is  the  child  of  the  past  and  the  parent  of  the  future.  In  the 
transition  from  childhood  to  youth,  from  youth  to  manhood,  and 
from  manhood  to  old  age,  in  intellectual  and  moral  training,  in 
social  life,  in  the  action  of  government,  appears  this  indissoluble 
connection  of  the  present  with  the  past  and  of  the  future  with 
the  present.  A  person,  a  village,  a  church,  a  state,  are  what  their 
past  action  has  made  them.  The  material  world  supplies  num¬ 
berless  analogies  to  the  same  law,  giving  significance  to  the 
apostle’s  declaration,  “  Whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that  shall  he 
also  reap”  (Gal.  vi.  7).  It  is  in  God’s  moral  government  the 
great  law  which,  like  the  law  of  gravitation  in  the  material  world, 
binds  the  moral  universe  together.  Annul  this  law,  and  it  is  in¬ 
conceivable  how  the  consciousness  of  personal  identity  can  be 
retained ;  or  how,  ceasing  to  be  conscious  of  any  perpetuated 
results  of  past  wrong-doing,  the  sinner  can  be  conscious  of  guilt. 
Annul  this  law,  and  moral  training  becomes  impossible ;  the  co¬ 
hesiveness  and  plasticity  of  character  are  destroyed,  action  can 
no  more  be  moulded  into  character  than  dry  sand  into  a  statue,  all 
the  care  with  which  a  child  is  educated  will  be  thrown  away, 
the  customs  of  early  years  will  not  grow  into  habits,  and  it  is  no 
longer  true,  “  Train  up  a  child  in  the  way  he  should  go  and  when 
he  is  old  he  will  not  depart  from  it.”  Annul  this  law,  and  the 
fact  that  a  person  has  always  been  true,  honest,  and  kind  is  no 
reason  for  expecting  that  he  will  continue  to  be  so  ;  'all  grounds 
of  confidence  in  the  perpetuity  of.character  are  destroyed,  and 
the  bonds  of  mutual  confidence  by  which  society  is  held  together 
are  dissolved.  Annul  this  law,  and  it  is  no  longer  possible  by 
living  the  life  of  Christian  love  to  grow  in  the  grace  and  knowl¬ 
edge  of  God,  and  all  preparation  for  heaven  is  useless.  Annul 
this  law,  and  there  is  no  danger  in  sipping  the  intoxicating  glass 
or  commencing  any  sinful  indulgence,  for  the  beginnings  of  sin 
are  as  likely  to  end  in  holiness  as  in  greater  sin.  In  short,  annul 
this  law,  and  God’s  moral  government  is  at  an  end  and  the  moral 
universe  resolved  into  chaos. 

W.  S.  Lilly  says  :  “  The  eventual  condition  of  every  soul  will 
be  such  as  is  best  for  that  soul,  —  that  is,  the  best  possible  for  it 
as  being  what  it  is,  what  it  has  made  itself  to  be.”  1  It  is  some- 

1  “The  Future  of  Religion,”  Contemporary  Review,  Feb.  1S83,  p.  20. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


475 


times  said  that  God  will  never  withhold  from  any  sinner  any  en¬ 
joyment  of  which  he  is  capable  as  a  sinner  in  the  course  of  life 
which  he  is  pursuing.  There  is  a  truth  in  these  sayings.  God 
will  not  sunder  the  connections  of  cause  and  effect,  of  antecedent 
and  consequent,  which  are  involved  in  the  constitution  of  things ; 
whatever  blessing  or  punishment  he  puts  on  men  will  be  always 
in  accordance  with  eternal  truth  and  law,  always  in  the  exercise 
of  both  righteousness  and  benevolence,  and  always  in  accordance 
with  the  constitution  of  things.  In  punishing,  God  looks  on 
the  sinner,  not  with  malignant  wrath  but  with  righteous  indigna¬ 
tion,  with  infinite  disapproval  but  with  infinite  pity.  The  sinner 
will  enjoy  all  which  his  character  and  what  he  has  made  himself 
to  be  by  sin  permit.  Good  is  not  withheld  from  him  arbitrarily 
and  revengefully,  but  in  accordance  with  the  immutable  prin¬ 
ciples,  laws,  and  ideals  of  eternal  Reason,  which  determine  the 
constitution  and  evolution  of  the  universe.  In  the  same  manner 
God  insures  good  to  those  who  trust  and  serve  him  in  love  to 
him  with  all  their  hearts  and  to  their  neighbor  as  themselves. 
The  constitution  of  the  universe  with  its  laws,  progressively  real¬ 
izing  the  divine  archetypal  ideal  of  all  perfection  and  well-being 
possible  to  be  realized  in  a  finite  universe  and  a  system  of  finite 
free  moral  agents,  remains  unchanged ;  and  every  person  gets 
from  it  and  from  God  in  it  whatever  good  he,  his  character  and 
development  being  what  they  are,  is  capable  of  receiving.  And 
the  good  or  the  evil  which  comes  upon  a  person  through  the 
constitution  of  the  universe,  is  as  really  the  expression  of  the 
heart  and  thought  of  God,  as  it  would  be  if  God  brought  it  on 
him  directly  by  miraculous  action.  God’s  providential  and  moral 
action  in  the  evolution  of  the  universe,  in  harmony  with  the  prin¬ 
ciples  and  laws  in  accordance  with  which  the  physical  and  the 
moral  or  spiritual  systems  are  respectively  constituted,  is  the  con¬ 
tinuous  expression  of  his  thought  in  progressive  realization  of  his 
archetypal  ideal  or  plan.  It  may  be  compared  to  the  action  of 
a  man  writing  an  essay,  or  delivering  a  discourse,  or  painting  a 
picture,  or  inventing  and  constructing  a  steam-engine  or  an  elec¬ 
tric  telegraph  or  a  trolley  railroad.  The  ideal  which  he  has 
created  in  his  mind  is  his  plan.  He  is  himself  present  actively 
engaged  in  constructing  the  realization  of  his  ideal  and  so  pro¬ 
gressively  expressing  his  thought  and  revealing  his  plan.  There¬ 
fore,  we  are  not  to  refer  events  to  a  system  hard  and  fast  and 


476  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

apart  from  God.  God  is  in  it ;  his  thought  and  its  expression 
are  not  crystallized  and  finished,  but  continually  crystallizing  into 
reality  in  time  and  space. 

It  is  said  that  if  the  sinner  is  punished  by  having  his  own  way 
in  sin,  the  punishment  will  be  no  motive  to  deter  him  from  sin  ; 
for  he  will  not  feel  it  as  privation  or  suffering.  But  if  we  leave 
out  all  other  evils  which  come  on  the  sinner  in  the  punishment 
for  his  sin  and  confine  our  thought  to  the  single  point  of  the 
depravation  of  the  soul  itself  by  sin,  it  will  be  evident  that  it 
involves  both  privation  and  suffering ;  that  it  is  a  terrible  pun¬ 
ishment  which  sin  inflicts  by  perpetuating  itself  and  giving  the 
sinner  over  to  the  realities  of  a  soul  leprous  with  sinful  character. 
It  is  appalling  to  think  of  a  person  foaming  everlastingly  in  anger, 
hatred,  and  revenge,  lacerated  with  peevishness,  anxiety,  and  dis¬ 
content,  pinched  by  eternal  miserliness  or  covetousness,  given  up 
like  a  helpless  deer,  Actaeon-like,  to  be  hunted  in  full  chase  by 
his  own  open-mouthed  and  ravenous  desires  and  passions.  Na¬ 
poleon  spent  his  life  in  feeding  his  ambition  with  conquered  prin¬ 
cipalities  and  kingdoms.  He  carried  that  gigantic  ambition  with 
him  to  the  island  to  which  he  was  banished.  His  discontent  and 
misery  there  is  an  exhibition  of  the  power  of  a  single  passion  to 
fill  the  soul  with  anguish.  It  illustrates  the  case  of  the  sinner 
driven  from  this  life  in  his  wickedness,  —  carrying  with  him  his 
passions  and  desires  intensified  by  long  indulgence,  to  gnaw  the 
naked  soul  itself,  —  carrying  with  him  his  dominant  choice  of  seif 
as  his  fixed  and  inmost  character.  Thus  his  own  selfishness  with 
its  sharp-toothed  desires  and  passions  is  itself  the  vulture  devour¬ 
ing  the  ever  living  and  growing  heart  of  the  Prometheus  chained  ; 
or,  as  the  scriptures  picture  it,  the  worm  that  never  dies,  the  fire 
which  can  never  be  quenched.  An  aggravation  of  the  woe  is 
that  by  his  own  free  and  persistent  choice  and  action  he  has  not 
only  brought  it  on,  but  inwrought  it  in  himself.  Because  setting 
himself  up  as  sufficient  for  himself  he  has  alienated  himself  from 
God  and  excluded  the  divine  guidance  and  help,  he  is  left  to  the 
resources  of  his  own  self-sufficiency.  He  is  driven  by  the  rest¬ 
lessness  of  wants  which  he  can  never  satisfy,  attracted  by  hopes 
which  always  prove  to  be  illusions ;  he  toils  for  what  seems  to 
him  the  good  and  finds  it  only  evil,  getting  only  weariness  in  the 
toil  and  disappointment  in  the  acquisition.  So  Bossuet  exclaims  : 
“Hell,  it  is  the  sin  itself;  hell,  it  is  being  alienated  from  God.” 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


477 


It  is  not  so  much  that  the  man  is  shut  out  of  heaven  as  that  he 
has  shut  heaven  out  of  himself  in  renouncing  God  and  shutting 
out  the  love  in  which  the  heavenly  life  and  blessedness  consist. 
It  is  not  so  much  that  the  sinner  is  cast  into  hell,  as  that  he 
kindles  its  fires  in  his  own  soul  by  his  selfishness,  his  self-suffi¬ 
ciency,  self-will,  self-glorifying,  and  self-seeking.  The  question 
for  everyone  is  not  so  much,  What  will  become  of  me?  as,  What 
shall  I  become? 

Origen  says  that  each  one  “  kindled  the  flame  of  his  own  ap¬ 
propriate  fire.”  Augustine  says,  “  Because  the  sin  was  a  despis¬ 
ing  of  the  authority  of  God  ...  it  was  just  that  condemnation 
followed,  and  condemnation  such  that  man,  who  by  keeping  the 
commandments  should  have  been  spiritual  even  in  his  flesh,  be¬ 
came  fleshly  even  in  his  spirit ;  and  as  in  pride  he  had  sought  to 
be  his  own  satisfaction,  God  in  his  justice  abandoned  him  to  him¬ 
self,  not  to  live  in  the  absolute  independence  he  affected,  but  in¬ 
stead  of  the  liberty  he  desired,  to  live  dissatisfied  with  himself  in 
a  hard  and  miserable  bondage.  .  .  .  To  say  all  in  a  word,  what 
but  disobedience  was  the  punishment  of  disobedience  in  that 
sin  (Adam’s)  ?  For  what  else  is  man’s  misery  but  his  own  dis¬ 
obedience,  so  that  in  consequence  of  his  not  being  willing  to  do 
what  he  could,  he  now  wills  to  do  what  he  cannot?”  (“  Civitas 
Dei,”  Bk.  xiv.  chap.  15).  “The  holy  man  Fursey  (a.  d.  633), 
who  believed  himself  to  have  been  guided  by  an  angel  near  the 
regions  of  the  damned,  related  the  vision.  There  were  four  fires, 
Falsehood,  Covetousness,  Discord,  Injustice,  which  joined  to  form 
one  great  flame.  When  this  drew  near,  Fursey  in  fear  said,  Lord, 
the  fire  draws  near  me.  The  angel  answered,  That  which  you 
did  not  kindle  shall  not  burn  you  ”  (M.  C.  Conway  “  Demon¬ 
ology  and  Devil-lore,”  vol.  ii.  p.  421).  Milton  says  of  Satan  : 

Horror  and  doubt  distract 
His  troubled  thoughts,  and  from  the  bottom  stir 
The  hell  within  him  ;  for  within  him  hell 
He  brings,  and  round  about  him,  nor  from  hell 
One  step,  no  more  than  from  himself,  can  fly. 

Paradise  Lost,  B.  iv. 

Martensen  says  :  “  The  proposition  that  sin  is  itself  the  punish¬ 
ment  of  sin  embodies  the  truth  that  man  by  sin  subjects  himself 
to  a  moral  fatality,  a  misera  necessitas  mcili ,  expressed  by  our 
Lord  in  the  words,  Whosoever  committeth  sin  is  the  servant  of 


478  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


sin  ”  (“Dogmatics,”  p.  209,  §  no).  This  moral  fatality  is  simply 
the  confirmed  sinful  character,  making  the  man  insensible  to  all 
motives  to  repentance  and  to  all  the  gracious  influences  of  God’s 
Spirit.  Julius  Muller  says  :  “The  way  of  return  to  God  is  closed 
against  no  one  who  does  not  close  it  against  himself.”  Dr.  Nor¬ 
man  McLeod  says  :  “  Let  the  fairest  star  be  selected,  like  a  beau¬ 
tiful  island  in  the  vast  and  shoreless  sea  of  the  azure  heaven  as 
the  future  home  of  the  criminals  from  the  earth ;  let  them  pos¬ 
sess  in  this  material  paradise  whatever  they  most  love  and  all 
that  it  is  possible  for  God  to  bestow,”  that  is,  upon  them  persist¬ 
ing  in  sin ;“ ...  let  them  exist  there  forever,  smitten  only  by 
the  leprosy  of  hatred  to  God,  and  with  utter  selfishness  as  their 
all-prevailing  purpose  ;  then,  as  sure  as  the  law  of  righteousness 
exists,  on  which  rests  the  throne  of  God  and  the  government  of 
the  universe,  a  society  so  constituted  must  work  out  for  itself  a 
hell  of  solitary  and  bitter  suffering  to  which  no  limit  can  be 
assigned  except  the  capacity  of  a  finite  nature  ”  (quoted  by 
H.  C.  Haydn,  “Death  and  Beyond,”  pp.  154,  159).  Edwin 
Arnold  ascribes  a  similar  idea  to  Gautama  Siddartha  : 

Showing  how  birth  and  death  should  be  destroyed, 

And  how  man  hath  no  fate  except  past  deeds, 

No  hell  but  what  he  makes,  no  heaven  too  high 
For  those  to  reach  whose  passions  sleep  subdued. 

Light  of  Asia,  Bk.  viii.  p.  27. 

Byron  describes  this  self-torment  and  exemplifies  it : 

And  dost  thou  ask,  what  secret  woe 
I  bear,  corroding  joy  and  youth  ?  .  .  #. 

It  is  not  love,  it  is  not  hate, 

Nor  low  ambition’s  honors  lost  .  .  . 

It  is  that  weariness  which  springs 
From  all  I  meet,  or  hear,  or  see;  .  .  . 

It  is  that  settled  ceaseless  gloom  .  .  . 

That  will  not  look  beyond  the  tomb, 

But  cannot  hope  to  rest  before  .  .  . 

What  exile  from  himself  can  flee  ? 

To  zones,  though  more  and  more  remote, 

Still,  still  pursues;  where’er  I  be. 

The  blight  of  life,  the  demon  Thought. 

...  I  ’ve  known  the  worst  .  .  . 

What  is  the  worst  ?  Nay,  do  not  ask  ; 

In  pity  from  that  search  forbear ; 

Smile  on,  nor  venture  to  unmask 

Man’s  heart  and  view  the  Hell  that ’s  there, 

Childe  Harold,  Canto  i.  (To  Inez.) 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


479 


Accordingly,  as  I  have  shown  in  Chapter  VII.,  if  a  person’s  chief 
end  in  life  is  the  gratification  of  selfish  desires,  Pessimism  is  the 
logical  conception  of  human  life  and  life  is  not  worth  living. 

3.  The  penalty  of  sin  consists,  further,  in  the  moral  isolation  of 
the  sinner  from  his  fellow-men,  and  the  privation  and  evil  which 
this  brings  on  him  in  accordance  with  the  constitution  of  the 
moral  system.  By  selfishness  a  person  isolates  himself  from  his 
fellow-men  in  the  moral  system  and  thus  puts  himself  into  antag¬ 
onism  to  them.  It  tends  to  division,  alienation,  and  enmity 
between  man  and  man  as  inevitably  as  it  involves  alienation  from 
God  and  enmity  against  him.  The  selfish  person  wishes  to  use 
other  persons  for  his  own  advantage,  or  at  least  to  crowd  them 
out  of  his  way.  The  principle  on  which  he  acts  is  the  principle 
of  antagonism  and  enmity.  Its  tendency  to  this  result  has  been 
manifested  in  all  the  history  of  the  world.  Poverty,  the  evils  of 
selfish  competition  and  of  selfish  combination,  war,  tyranny, 
fraud,  injustice,  and  nearly  all  the  evils  which  afflict  society  would 
cease  if  selfishness  should  cease  and  love  to  God  and  man  reign 
in  the  hearts  and  regulate  the  lives  of  all. 

Selfishness  is  also  in  direct  revolt  against  the  moral  government 
of  God.  If  it  had  power  commensurate  with  its  disposition,  it 
would  depose  God,  subvert  the  moral  system  and  reign  in  God’s 
stead. 

But  the  selfish  life,  because  it  involves  enmity  against  God,  can 
issue  only  in  frustration  and  defeat.  The  universe  is  constituted 
under  the  law  of  love.  Every  attempt  to  attain  well-being  in  a 
life  of  selfishnes,  must  fail.  According  to  the  constitution  of  the 
universe  all  things  in  it  work  together  for  good  to  them  who  love 
God  and  man,  and  for  evil  to  them  who  live  in  selfishness. 

4.  The  penalty  comprises  also  the  privation  of  physical  good 
and  the  suffering  of  physical  evil  which  the  sinner  brings  on  him¬ 
self  by  his  sin  through  the  physical  constitution  of  the  universe. 
The  physical  system  is  subordinate  to  the  ends  and  uses  of  the 
spiritual  and  moral  system.  God  uses  its  agencies  both  for  the 
moral  discipline  of  rational  persons,  and  for  the  punishment  of 
those  who  sin.  It  is  not  true  that  physical  want  and  suffering  are 
always  penalties  for  sin.  They  may  be  incidental  to  the  educa¬ 
tion  and  discipline  of  those  who  have  not  sinned.  We  can  say 
that  any  particular  physical  privation  or  suffering  is  a  penalty  for 
sin  only  when  we  can  trace  the  connection  and  know  that  sin  has 


480  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


occasioned  the  privation  or  suffering.  Such  are  the  physical 
effects  of  drunkenness  and  licentiousness,  of  luxurious  self-indul¬ 
gence,  and  the  penury  which  results  from  idleness  and  improvi¬ 
dence.  Here  opens  a  wide  range  of  facts  in  which  it  comes  under 
our  observation  that  sin  is  punished  by  physical  evils  coming  on  the 
sinner  in  accordance  with  the  constitution  of  the  physical  system. 
And  because  we  know  that  the  physical  system  is  constituted 
and  evolved  according  to  the  truths  and  laws  of  Reason  and  for 
the  realization  of  its  archetypal  and  ideal  ends  of  perfection  and 
well-being,  we  must  infer,  what  the  scriptures  also  teach,  that  all 
the  powers  of  the  physical  system,  working  together  according  to 
the  constitution  of  the  system,  must  tend,  in  their  general  scope 
and  ultimate  issues,  to  bring  good  on  all  persons  who  live  lives 
of  Christian  love,  and  evil  on  all  who  live  in  selfishness.1 

5.  The  penalty  for  sin  comprises  exclusion  from  heaven,  and 
the  privation  of  good  and  the  suffering  of  positive  evil  which  this 
implies  and  which  is  set  forth  in  the  scriptures. 

This  is  a  necessary  inference  from  the  principles  already  estab¬ 
lished.  There  is  nothing  in  the  fact  of  death  which  changes  the 
essential  character  of  sin,  nor  the  moral  constitution  of  man,  nor 
the  constitution  of  the  universe,  nor  the  character  of  the  person 
nor  the  law  of  its  formation  and  development.  Therefore  there 
is  nothing  in  death  which  can  arrest  the  punishment  of  sin.  The 
punishment  is  the  necessary  shadow  of  the  sin  as  it  obtrudes  it¬ 
self  into  the  light  of  the  eternal  Reason  and  obstructs  the  rays  of 
its  eternal  wisdom  and  love.  As  R.  W.  Emerson  expresses  it : 
“  Crime  and  punishment  grow  out  of  one  stem.  Punishment  is 
a  fruit  which  unsuspected  ripens  in  the  flower  of  pleasure  which 
concealed  it.”  In  accordance  with  these  principles  it  is  certain 
that  every  one  who  persists  in  sin  without  repentance  till  death  will 
begin  the  life  after  death  a  sinner;  that  he  will  be  punished  in 
the  future  life  so  long  as  he  persists  impenitent  in  sin ;  that,  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  law  of  moral  continuity,  persisting  in  sin,  he  will 
come,  if  he  has  not  reached  it  before  death,  to  a  character  so 
confirmed  in  sin  that  no  moral  influence  will  induce  him  to 
change  ;  that  the  penalty  which  I  have  indicated  will  continue 

1  “  The  essential  good  of  a  person  is  the  perfection  of  his  being,  his  con¬ 
sequent  harmony  with  himself,  with  God  the  supreme  Reason,  and  with  the 
constitution  of  the  universe ;  and  the  happiness  necessarily  resulting  ” 
(“  The  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,”  Prof.  S.  Harris,  p.  271.) 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


481 


inseparable  from  the  sinful  character ;  and  that  this  will  be  true, 
whatever  privations  and  evils  may  be  incurred  in  the  life  after 
death,  transcending  the  limits  of  our  present  knowledge. 

We  can  form  no  definite  conception  of  the  nature  of  the  phys¬ 
ical  evil  which  may  enter  into  the  punishment  of  sin  in  the  world 
to  come,  because  we  know  so  little  of  “  that  body  which  shall 
be  ”  and  of  its  environment.  The  significance  of  the  biblical 
representations  of  unquenchable  fire,  the  immortal  worm,  and  the 
like,  as  emblems,  need  not  be  restricted  to  physical  suffering,  but 

may  equally,  or  even  only,  denote  the  spiritual  evil  coming  in  and 
✓ 

from  sin.  But  we  must  infer  that  the  physical  environment,  what¬ 
ever  it  may  be,  must  be  there,  as  it  is  here,  a  medium  for  the 
education  of  the  righteous  and  for  the  punishment  of  trans¬ 
gressors  ;  that  sin  there  as  really  as  here  will  be  in  contradiction 
to  the  constitution  of  the  universe,  and  that  all  the  forces  of  the 
universe,  there  as  here,  in  their  unity  as  a  system  and  in  their 
ultimate  tendency,  will  work  together  for  the  good  of  them  who 
love  God  and  their  neighbors,  and  for  evil  to  all  who  live  in 
selfishness  and  sin. 

The  Bible  teaches  that  some  will  never  turn  from  selfishness  to 
God  in  penitential  trust  and  service.  But  as  to  the  question  of 
fact,  what  will  be  the  actual  results  of  God’s  gracious  action 
redeeming  men  from  sin,  the  attempt  to  answer  it  must  be  post¬ 
poned  till  after  we  have  studied  the  history  of  God’s  redemptive 
action  and  his  revelation  of  himself  therein  as  recorded  in  the 
Bible,  and  all  the  teachings  of  Christ,  “  who  illuminated  life  and 
immortality  through  the  gospel  ”  (2  Tim.  i.  10). 1 

1  Rev.  Charles  A.  Allen,  in  the  “  Unitarian  Review,”  quotes  the  words  of 
another,  “  The  insight  of  conscience  and  the  sense  of  sin  are  the  source,  and 
not  the  fruit,  of  religious  fear,  and  whatever  is  fabulous  in  the  scene  on 
which  it  looks  is  but  a  distorted  shadow  cast  from  the  truest  light”;  and 
says  :  “  It  is  the  radiant  light  of  this  intense  and  holy  ethical  feeling  of 
Christianity  that  casts  the  distorted  shadow  ;  and  we  must  confess  that  this 
shadow  was  inevitable,  simply  because  no  other  symbolic  picture  seemed 
adequate  to  express  to  the  religious  imagination  the  distinctive  Christian 
feeling  of  the  infinite  and  everlasting  gulf  between  sin  and  holiness.  .  .  . 
Anyone  who  will  look  beneath  the  logical  forms  of  statement  which  theolo¬ 
gians  have  given  to  this  popular  doctrine  and  penetrate  to  the  spiritual  fact 
of  human  experience  that  is  hid  within,  can  read  the  deeper  meaning  of  the 
doctrine.  But,  if  the  Unitarians,  in  dropping  the  doctrine,  lose  also  the 
Christian  sentiment  which  it  was  meant  to  express,  they  miss  the  central 
truth  of  the  Christian  Gospel.” 
vol.  11.  —  31 


482  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


IV.  Inferences  and  Explanations.  —  This  doctrine  of  the 
divine  punishment  of  sinners  corrects  misconceptions,  removes 
difficulties  and  objections  and  gives  a  clearer  and  deeper  insight 
into  its  significance  and  its  practical  power. 

1.  It  throws  light  on  the  nature  and  necessity  of  probation. 
Probation  is  inseparable  from  the  education,  disciplining,  and 
development  of  finite  persons  in  a  moral  system.  God  does  not 
put  men  on  probation  simply  for  the  sake  of  trying  them,  but 
because  he  is  aiming  to  develop  and  perfect  them  by  education 
and  discipline  ;  and  trial  or  probation  is  inseparable  from  the  pro¬ 
cess.  Because  they  are  finite  they  must  begin  undeveloped  and 
characterless,  and  must  by  their  own  free  action  form  their  own 
characters,  right  or  wrong,  in  love  or  selfishness.  God  in  giving 
them  his  law  and  in  all  his  loving  dealings  with  them  aims  to 
educate,  discipline,  and  develop  them  to  the  formation  of  right 
characters  of  love  like  his  own  and  to  the  realization  of  the 
highest  possibilities  of  their  being.  In  this  process  of  education 
and  development  they  are  necessarily  on  probation.  Under  the 
gracious  influences  of  God’s  teaching  and  discipline  they  must 
determine  by  their  own  free  wills  whether  they  will  obey  or  dis¬ 
obey  his  law  of  love,  whether  they  will  trustfully  follow  his 
heavenly  drawing,  or  resist  it  in  self-sufficiency  and  self-will. 

If  any  of  them  disobey  and  resist,  and  so  alienate  themselves 
from  God,  they  are  condemned.  But  God  still  remains  gracious 
and  seeks  the  sinners  with  heavenly  influences  to  draw  them 
back  to  trust  and  serve  him  in  the  life  of  love.  Then  they  are 
necessarily  again  on  probation  under  God’s  gracious  seeking 
of  them,  and  must  decide  either  penitently  to  accept  his  grace 
and  enter  on  the  life  of  love,  or  to  resist  and  reject  it  and  persist 
in  selfishness  and  disobedience. 

Thus  it  is  inseparable  from  the  process  of  education,  discipline, 
and  development  of  a  finite  person  in  a  moral  system  under 
the  government  of  God,  that  he  be  on  probation  or  trial.  He 
must  by  his  own  free  will  determine  his  own  action  and  form 
his  own  character. 

And  the  probation  or  trial  will  continue  till  by  persistence  the 
person’s  character  has  become  fixed  so  that  moral  influences 
will  never  induce  him  to  change.  If  it  is  fixed  in  selfishness, 
he  is  no  longer  on  probation  but  under  final  condemnation 
in  fixed  alienation  from  God.  If  his  character  is  fixed  in  love, 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


483 


he  is  no  longer  on  probation,  but  secure  in  his  love  against 
all  temptation  to  change.  But  this  fixedness  is  not  as  Martensen 
represents  it,  a  moral  fatality,  a  miserable  necessity  of  sinning. 
The  sinner  remains  as  completely  as  ever  in  the  exercise  of 
free  will ;  only  by  his  own  free  action  he  has  so  confirmed  his 
own  free  choice  or  preference  that  the  contrary  presents  no 
attractions.  It  is  his  own  free  choice  or  preference  continuous 
and  free  at  every  moment  in  which  he  persists  forever.  The 
opinion  often  expressed  in  theology,  that  such  persistence  is 
incompatible  with  free  will,  rests  on  the  false  theory  that  the 
exercise  of  free  will  is  possible  only  in  indifference,  or  on  some 
other  erroneous  theory.  It  is  in  no  wise  incompatible  with  free 
will  rightly  conceived  as  power  enlightened  by  reason  and  there¬ 
fore  self-directive  and  self-exertive. 

It  may  be  asked,  why  God,  since  he  is  almighty,  does  not  restrain 
the  person  from  willing  wrong  ;  or,  after  the  person  has  renounced 
God  in  the  supreme  choice  of  self,  why  does  not  God  by  al¬ 
mighty  power  change  the  sinner’s  will.  The  answer  is  that  a  free 
will  cannot  be  determined  by  force  or  by  another  person,  but  only 
by  the  person  himself  in  free  determination  under  the  influence 
of  motives.  If  a  person’s  will  is  determined  by  another,  the 
determination  would  be  no  longer  his  own  act,  but  the  act 
of  another.  This  supposition  and  the  supposition  that  the  will 
is  determined  by  force  are  incompatible  with  the  essential  idea 
of  free  will.  God  cannot  change  a  person’s  free  choice  by  an 
act  of  resistless  power.  This  would  imply,  not  determining  or 
changing  the  free  will,  but  crushing  and  annihilating  it,  and  with 
it  the  moral  system  itself  and  all  moral  government.  God’s 
drawing  of  a  free  agent  to  himself  can  be  only  by  influence 
compatible  with  the  constitution  of  a  rational  free  agent.  It 
is  of  the  essence  of  free  will  that  it  can  resist  all  the  influence 
which  God  in  wisdom  and  love  can  exert  on  it.  “  I  drew  them 
with  cords  of  a  man,  with  bands  of  love.”  “  The  love  of  Christ 
constraineth  us”  (Hos.  xi.  4  ;  2  Cor.  v.  14).  The  theological 
teaching  that  God  regenerates  the  sinner  by  almighty  and 
resistless  power  is  totally  incompatible  with  free  will. 

It  may  be  asked  why  God  did  not  create  men  with  characters 
confirmed  in  love.  The  answer  is  the  same.  Every  one  must 
determine  his  own  moral  character.  It  can  begin  only  in  his 
own  free  choice  in  the  exercise  of  his  own  free  will.  It  can 


484  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 

be  developed  and  confirmed  only  by  his  own  free  action  in 
harmony  with  it,  strengthening  his  determination  of  himself,  form  ¬ 
ing  habits  and  developing  susceptibilities  and  capacities  in  the 
line  of  his  supreme  choice,  suppressing  and  deadening  all  those 
impelling  to  the  contrary.  God  can  no  more  create  a  person 
with  a  moral  character  than  he  can  create  a  person  a  hundred 
years  old. 

It  is  therefore  inherent  in  the  very  idea  of  rational  and  respon¬ 
sible  moral  agents  and  of  their  existence  in  a  moral  system  under 
the  government  of  God,  that  they  must  all  pass  through  a  period 
of  education,  discipline,  and  development,  in  which  they  are 
on  probation  or  trial  and  are  severally  forming  their  characters 
either  in  love  to  God  and  man  or  in  wilful  alienation  from  him 
and  from  men  in  supreme  love  to  self.  A  moral  system  not 
under  these  conditions  is  impossible  and  absurd. 

The  doctrine  has  been  familiar  in  theology  that  mankind  was 
on  probation  collectively  once  for  all  and  one  for  all  in  Adam ; 
and  that  after  his  fall  no  person  is  personally  on  probation  at 
the  beginning  of  life,  but  all  are  already  under  condemnation. 
Augustine  taught  that  man  lost  his  free  will  in  the  Fall.  In 
this  he  differs  from  the  earlier  fathers  in  the  Christian  church. 
These  had  taught  that,  whatever  damage  had  come  on  man 
by  the  fall  of  Adam,  his  power  of  free  choice  remained,  so 
that  he  could  avail  himself  of  whatever  opportunities  and  influ¬ 
ences  God  graciously  offered  him.  Clement  of  Alexandria  recog¬ 
nized  capacity  for  good  even  in  the  heathen.  Augustine’s 
doctrine  that  free  will  was  lost  in  the  Fall  has  had  wide  preva¬ 
lence  in  theology.  It  has  been  a  basis  for  the  doctrine  of 
absolute  unconditional  election  and  reprobation.  All  human 
beings  are  born  sinful,  guilty  and  without  free  will.  God’s 
election  becomes  absolute  and  arbitrary,  having  no  regard  to 
the  free  action  of  man.1  The  only  legitimate  basis  for  this 
conception  is  the  doctrine  that  the  divine  will  is  supreme  and 
unregulated  by  law,  above  even  the  principles  and  laws  of  Reason, 
and  that  the  regeneration  of  the  sinner  is  simply  an  act  of 
almighty  power.  These  conclusions  logically  carried  out  are 
incompatible  with  the  existence  of  rational  free  agents  and  of 
a  moral  system  under  the  moral  government  of  God.  The  Augus- 
tinian  doctrine  on  this  point  is  now  giving  way  to  the  more  scrip- 
1  See  “Westminster  Confession,”  chaps,  iii.,  vi.,  ix.,  x. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


485 


tural  and  reasonable  doctrine  that  every  person  under  the  gov¬ 
ernment  of  God  is  on  probation,  and  while  dependent  on  God’s 
grace  determines  his  own  character  and  destiny.  This  change 
is  in  great  part  the  result  of  greater  clearness  and  correctness 
of  the  conception  of  free  will  and  moral  responsibility,  and 
of  God  as  the  absolute  Reason  freely  determining  all  his  action 
in  conformity  with  its  eternal  principles  and  laws. 

2.  The  doctrine  which  has  been  presented  shows  the  reason¬ 
ableness  of  punishment  and  the  obligation  of  government  to 
inflict  it  on  transgressors.  This  appears  in  the  fact  that  the 
principles  of  truth  and  of  the  moral  law  are  eternally  and  immut¬ 
ably  the  constituent  elements  of  absolute  Reason,  authorita¬ 
tively  commanding  every  rational  will  and  imposing  obligation 
to  obedience.  This  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  ethical  neces¬ 
sity  both  of  obedience  and  of  the  infliction  of  punishment.  It 
is  rather  the  supreme  and  inviolable  authority  of  absolute  Reason 
underlying  the  constitution  of  the  universe,  and  the  ethical  and 
immutable  obligation  to  obey  it,  which  are  the  presupposition 
of  moral  action  and  responsibility. 

Sir  William  Hamilton  by  his  agnosticism  shuts  out  all  basis  for 
the  knowledge  of  the  true,  the  right,  the  perfect,  and  the  good 
as  eternal  in  the  mind  of  God  and  constituent  elements  of  the 
eternal  Reason.  He  teaches  that  we  do  not  know  what  God  is ; 
we  do  not  know  that  truth,  right,  perfection,  well-being,  love, 
are  to  God  at  all  what  we  suppose  them  to  be.  Hence  we 
cannot  know  that  God’s  will  is  regulated  by  the  law  of  love, 
or  that  it  is  not  altogether  above  law  and  exempt  from  all 
rational  control.  Mansel  goes  even  further  and  teaches  that 
God  has  power  to  suspend  the  moral  law  for  individuals  in 
special  cases,  and  that  instances  of  such  suspension  are  recorded 
in  the  history  of  Israel.  He  calls  such  a  supposed  suspension 
of  law  “  a  moral  miracle.”  But  a  miracle,  even  in  the  physical 
world,  never  suspends  a  universal  truth  or  law  of  reason,  but 
only  interrupts  a  uniform  sequence  by  the  intervention  of  another 
adequate  cause ;  while  both  the  sequence  and  its  interruption 
accord  with  the  principles  and  laws  of  reason.  A  miracle  im¬ 
plies  no  suspension  of  the  law  of  causation,  or  of  the  law  that 
the  same  combination  of  causes  always  produces  the  same  effect, 
or  of  the  principles  of  mathematics  or  the  laws  of  mechanics. 
In  a  miracle  the  sequence  is  interrupted  only  by  a  new  cause 


486  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


adequate  to  produce  the  new  effect.  No  power  in  the  universe 
or  transcending  it  can  annul  or  suspend  a  universal  and  eternal 
law  of  reason,  as,  for  example,  by  producing  an  effect  without  an 
adequate  cause.  Equally  impossible  is  the  suspension  in  any  case 
for  an  instant  of  the  universal  law  of  love.  It  would  imply  that 
law  is  created  by  the  hat  of  an  almighty  will ;  that  there  is 
no  law  except  arbitrary  rules  now  promulgated  and  then  annulled 
by  a  capricious  will  itself  unregulated  by  reason  or  by  any  eternal 
truth  and  law.  Then  there  would  be  no  eternal  and  immutable 
ground  for  the  law  of  love,  no  absolute  and  universal  obligation 
to  obedience  to  it  or  to  the  punishment  of  transgressors,  no  need 
of  atonement  for  sin.  The  supreme  will  that  issued  the  com¬ 
mand  can  revoke  it  when  he  will  and  can  remit  the  punishment 
of  a  transgressor  when  he  will  without  the  transgressor’s  repent¬ 
ance  and  without  atonement.  The  only  conception  which  admits 
the  rightfulness  and  the  ethical  obligation  of  punishment,  or 
of  atonement  in  order  to  the  justification  of  sinners,  is  that  which 
recognizes  the  law  of  love  as  eternal  in  God  the  absolute  Reason, 
which  he  cannot  rescind  without  annulling  his  own  rationality ; 
and  also  recognizes  God,  by  his  eternal  free  choice,  acting  in 
obedience  to  that  law  in  all  his  righteousness  and  benevolence, 
constituting  and  evolving  the  universe  in  accordance  with  it ; 
and  Christ,  the  exponent  to  us,  under  human  limitations  and 
conditions,  of  God’s  love  in  the  redemption  of  men  from  sin, 
obeying  the  law  of  love  even  unto  death.  Thus  God  reveals 
the  inviolable  authority,  the  universality  and  immutability  of  that 
law,  the  inevitableness  of  the  persistent  punishment  of  the  persist¬ 
ent  transgressor,  and  the  impossibility  of  redeeming  the  sinner 
from  sin  to  God,  except  in  such  way  as  asserts,  maintains,  and 
vindicates  the  supremacy  of  the  law  of  love  as  effectually  as 
does  the  punishment  of  the  sinner  persisting  in  sin, — and  thus 
makes  atonement  for  sin.  If  God  in  the  exercise  of  his  benevo¬ 
lence  in  the  redemption  of  sinners  is  not  himself  obeying  the  law 
of  love,  then  he  is  not  asserting  and  maintaining  it,  and  therefore 
is  not  making  atonement  for  sinners  ;  and  he  needs  to  make  none, 
because,  being  above  law  in  his  benevolence,  he  can,  at  his  mere 
lawless  will,  remit  the  penalty  which  the  law  imposes  on  transgres¬ 
sors.  David  sank  the  judge  in  the  father.  Brutus  sank  the  father 
in  the  judge.  God  is  both  father  and  judge  in  every  act,  alike 
when  commanding,  condemning,  redeeming,  or  justifying. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW  487 

3.  Our  doctrine  corrects  misapprehensions  as  to  God’s  agency 
in  punishing  and  answers  objections  founded  on  them. 

The  objection  is  urged  that,  if  evil  comes  on  the  sinner  in  con¬ 
sequence  of  his  sin  through  the  constitution  of  the  universe,  it  is  not 
inflicted  immediately  by  God  as  an  expression  of  his  displacency 
and  condemnation,  and  therefore  is  not  punishment  in  the  true 
meaning  of  the  word. 

It  is  admitted  that  it  is  essential  to  the  idea  of  the  divine  pun¬ 
ishment  of  sinners  that  it  must  be  God  who  punishes,  and  that  the 
punishment  must  express  his  condemnation  of  the  sinner  and  his 
displacency  toward  him.  Any  theory  that  punishment  is  the  nat¬ 
ural  consequence  of  sin,  which  means  that  it  does  not  come  on 
the  sinner  from  God  and  is  not  the  expression  of  God’s  condem¬ 
nation  and  displacency,  is  necessarily  false ;  for  it  leaves  out  that 
which  is  of  the  essence  of  punishment,  which  distinguishes  penalty 
from  disease  or  misfortune,  and  which  gives  to  it  all  its  moral 
power.  Such  a  theory,  I  admit,  is  “  atheistic  in  its  affinities  and 
its  theory  of  the  moral  universe.”  It  excludes  God  from  the  con¬ 
stitution,  evolution,  and  government  of  the  universe.  And  it  must 
be  admitted  also  that  theologians  have  stated  the  doctrine  of  moral 
continuity  and  punishment  through  the  constitution  of  things  so 
as  to  imply  this  exclusion  of  God,  sometimes  using  language  im¬ 
plying  more  than  the  writer  intended.  “  Those  consequences 
which  seem  to  answer  most  truly  to  the  ideas  expressed  by  such 
words  (punishment  and  reward)  are  nothing,  as  we  have  seen, 
but  the  fruit  of  natural  development  of  the  good  or  evil  we  have 
done,  and  are  neither  extrinsically  superadded  nor  arbitrarily 
imposed.”  This  writer  gives  a  similar  explanation  of  a  sinner’s 
conversion  to  God.  He  raises  the  question,  how  it  is  possible 
under  this  law  of  moral  continuity  for  a  bad  man  to  change  his 
character  and  enter  on  a  right  life.  Of  the  Christian  explanation 
of  this  by  the  gracious  and  renovating  influence  of  God  in  re¬ 
demption  he  says  :  “  St.  Paul  was  confident  that  the  better  will, 
when  re-enforced  by  Christian  influences,  could  and  would 
triumph ;  but  to  conceive  of  these  influences  as  an  exertion  of 
supernatural  grace,  as  he  is  generally  supposed  to  do,  is  little  else 
than  to  explain  away  the  difficulty  and  really  to  deprive  the  pro¬ 
cess  of  conversion  of  all  its  value  and  of  all  mystery.  We  have 
rather  to  seek  the  explanation  of  it  in  the  latent  capacities  of  our 
nature ;  in  the  balance  of  good  and  evil  within  us ;  in  the  vitality 


488  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


and  spontaneousness  of  a  spiritual  force,  of  a  higher  nature  within 
us  to  which  the  gospel  appeals ;  and  in  the  action  of  the  divine 
idea,  as  the  gospel  presents  it,  upon  the  reason  of  man.”1  This 
seems  to  imply  the  exclusion  of  the  presence  and  action  of  the 
personal  God  from  government  by  law,  from  punishment  and  re¬ 
demption,  and  every  supernatural  agency,  and  to  resolve  it  all  into 
the  influence  of  abstract  truth  and  law ;  thus  implicitly  agreeing 
with  those  who  explicitly  assert  this  exclusion.  So  Tollner  says 
the  punishment  of  sin  would  come  on  the  sinner  as  the  immediate 
consequence  of  sin  just  as  certainly,  even  if  there  were  no  God. 
And  Emerson  speaks  of  the  moral  laws  as  executing  themselves. 
Thus  he  falls  into  a  very  common  mistake  of  identifying  abstract 
laws  with  efficient  causes.  If  these  conceptions  are  correct,  one 
is  at  a  loss  to  see  what  need  there  is  of  God,  or  wherein  man  is 
dependent  on  him  or  needs  to  trust  him,  or  what  possibility  there 
is  for  man  of  any  religion  above  a  morality  which  consists  in  his 
acting  in  accordance  with  his  own  “  idea  ”  of  right.  Such  state¬ 
ments  logically  imply  either  atheism,  or  an  epicurean  or  deistic 
conception  of  God  as  apart  from  the  universe  and  inactive  in  it. 
In  the  latter  case  they  logically  imply  that  the  constitution  of  the 
universe  is  foreign  from  God  and  the  universe  practically  inde¬ 
pendent  of  him ;  that  he  acts  and  reveals  himself  in  it  only  on 
rare  occasions  and  then  in  contravention  of  its  constitution,  its 
laws,  and  its  continuity  and  uniformity ;  so  that  his  action  can  be 
only  irruptive  and  interruptive. 

If  this  were  a  true  conception  of  the  continuity  of  moral  char¬ 
acter  and  of  punishment  coming  on  the  sinner  through  the  consti¬ 
tution  of  things,  the  objection  under  consideration  would  be  valid 
and  the  doctrine  of  moral  continuity  would  be  untenable.  But 
the  objection  is  of  no  force  against  the  doctrine  rightly  un¬ 
derstood.  God  in  the  light  of  his  perfect  Reason  sees  the 
archetypal  plan  of  a  finite  universe,  created  in  the  forms  of  space, 
time,  and  conscious  but  finite  personality,  accordant  with  all  ra¬ 
tional  truth  and  law,  in  which  he  will  progressively  realize  the  ra¬ 
tional  ideals  of  perfection  and  well-being  so  far  as  possible  in  a  finite 
universe  and  in  a  system  of  finite  free  moral  agents,  and  by  the 
action  of  good-will  regulated  in  wisdom  and  righteousness.  He 
gives  to  the  universe  its  constitution  by  expressing  in  it  the  arch¬ 
etypal  thoughts  of  his  wisdom  in  the  acts  of  his  love.  He  is 

1  Rev.  Wm.  Mackintosh,  D.  D.,  “Scotch  Sermons/'  1S80,  pp.  138,  149. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


489 


immanently  active  in  it,  progressively  expressing  and  revealing  his 
thought  and  character,  realizing  the  ideals  of  his  wisdom,  and  re¬ 
vealing  his  divine  perfections.  Thus  in  the  constitution,  evolution, 
and  government  of  the  universe  he  is  continuously  and  progres¬ 
sively  expressing  his  thought  and  purpose,  his  righteousness  and 
good-will,  what  he  is  as  God,  and  what  are  his  relations  to  his 
creatures ;  thus  in  the  constitution  and  on-going  of  the  universe 
God  is  continuously  revealing  himself.  If,  then,  through  the  con¬ 
stitution  and  evolution  of  the  universe  evil  comes  on  sinners  in 
consequence  of  their  sins,  this  is  all  the  more  the  expression  of 
God’s  condemnation  and  displacency.  Actions  speak  louder  than 
words.  God  always  acts  in  perfect  sincerity,  acting  out  what  he  is 
as  God.  In  condemning  and  punishing  sinners  he  simply  acts  out 
the  divine  in  him.  These  are  only  the  reverse  side  of  his  love,  of 
his  good-will  regulated  in  righteousness.  And  because  the  punish¬ 
ment  comes  from  God  through  the  constitution  of  the  universe  and 
the  normal  action  of  its  powers,  it  must  be  accordant  with  the 
law  of  love  which  is  at  the  basis  of  the  moral  system,  and  with  all 
the  principles,  laws,  and  ideals  eternal  in  the  absolute  Reason  in 
accordance  with  which  the  universe  is  constituted.  Therefore  it 
is  impossible  for  any  person  living  in  selfishness  in  the  universe 
thus  constituted  and  evolved  to  realize  perfection  and  well-being ; 
and  impossible  for  any  person  living  in  universal  love  to  miss 
these  blessings.  Thus  God  has  incorporated  his  law  of  love,  its 
immutable  obligation  and  inviolable  authority,  and  the  inevitable¬ 
ness  of  the  punishment  of  transgressors,  into  the  constitution  of  the 
universe  and  maintains  and  enforces  the  law  through  the  normal 
action  of  all  its  powers.  It  is  more  emphatically  the  infliction  of 
punishment  by  the  hand  of  God  and  the  expression  of  his  con¬ 
demnation  and  displeasure  than  any  infliction  transcending  the 
constitution  of  the  universe  and  breaking  in  on  its  continuity  and 
uniformity.  When  God  blesses  a  person,  “  underneath  are  the 
everlasting  arms,”  strong  with  all  the  energies  of  the  universe ; 
and  by  the  same  his  curse  is  laid  upon  the  sinner. 

This  objection  may  sometimes  arise  from  the  misapprehension 
that  the  constitution  of  the  universe  denotes  only  the  constitution 
of  nature,  that  is,  of  the  physical  system.  It  should  be  under¬ 
stood  that  the  constitution  of  the  universe  includes  the  constitution 
of  personal  free  agents  as  well  as  of  impersonal  beings ;  of  the 
moral  system  as  well  as  of  the  physical. 


490  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


Another  needed  explanation  is  that  the  doctrine  is  not  that  all 
privation  and  suffering  which  come  on  a  person  in  accordance 
with  the  constitution  of  the  universe  are  a  punishment  for  his  per¬ 
sonal  sin.  The  scriptures  plainly  teach  the  contrary.1  Christ 
himself,  the  ideally  perfect  man,  was  also  pre-eminently  the  man  of 
sorrows.  Privation  and  suffering  are  brought  on  men  without  re¬ 
gard  to  their  personal  character,  by  sins  and  crimes  of  others,  and 
by  cosmic  agencies  which  the  person  had  no  way  to  avoid  and  no 
power  to  resist.  Such  privation  and  suffering,  however,  met  and 
borne  in  Christian  love,  develop  and  strengthen  the  spiritual  char¬ 
acter  and  power,  and,  as  the  means  of  education,  discipline,  and 
development  to  true  well-being,  are  not  evil  but  relative  good. 
Therefore  of  all  privation  and  suffering  coming  on  sinners  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  constitution  of  the  universe  we  regard  as  punishment 
only  that  which  comes  on  the  sinner  as  the  necessary  consequence 
of  his  sin  and  which  would  have  been  avoided  if  he  had  not 
committed  the  sin. 

We  see  in  this  life  evils  evidently  brought  on  men  through  the 
constitution  of  things  in  consequence  of  their  sins.  In  these  cases 
no  one  who  believes  in  God  doubts  that  the  evils  are  the  punish¬ 
ment  of  sin  expressing  God’s  displacency  and  condemnation. 
Such  are  the  anguish  of  remorse,  self-condemnation,  shame,  and 
fear  in  the  consciousness  of  guilt ;  diseases  which  are  the  avengers 
of  drunkenness  and  licentiousness ;  poverty  which  follows  idle¬ 
ness,  negligence,  and  lack  of  frugality.  There  are  also  latent 
capacities  which  surprise  us  by  awakening  in  extraordinary  emer¬ 
gencies,  revealing  terrible  possibilities  of  memory  and  remorse. 
This  is  exemplified  in  the  many  instances  on  record  of  the  revival 
of  memory  in  persons  at  the  point  of  drowning  or  in  violent  dis¬ 
ease.2  It  is  sometimes  argued,  from  the  fact  that  sinners  become 

1  Luke  xiii.  1-5;  John  ix.  2,3;  Heb.  ii.  10-18  ;  iv.  15. 

2  Coleridge  relates  an  instance  :  A  young  woman  in  violent  illness  re¬ 
peated  sentences  and  words  of  an  unknown  language.  These  were  ascertained 
to  be  sentences  and  words  of  Hebrew  which  a  former  employer  of  the  girl 
was  accustomed  to  read  aloud  as  he  walked  up  and  down  a  hall,  the  door  of 
which  opened  into  the  kitchen.  De  Quincy  says,  near  the  end  of  his  “  Opium 
Eater  ”  :  “  A  relative  of  mine,  having  in  her  childhood  fallen  into  a  river,  and 
being  on  the  verge  of  death,  .  .  .  saw  in  a  moment  her  whole  life,  clothed  in  its 
forgotten  incidents,  arrayed  before  her  as  in  a  mirror,  not  successively  but  sim¬ 
ultaneously  ;  and  she  had  a  faculty  developed  as  suddenly  for  comprehend¬ 
ing  the  whole  and  every  part.”  When  California  travel  was  mostly  by  the 
isthmus,  a  New  York  and  Panama  steamship  foundered  at  sea  and  the  crew 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


491 


hardened  by  persistence  in  sin,  that  they  will  become  incapable 
of  remorse  and  that  conscience  will  cease  either  to  command  or 
reprove  them.  Such  a  moral  petrifaction  would  be  in  itself  the 
loss  from  the  soul  of  all  that  is  highest  and  best,  and  so  would  be 
a  terrific  retribution.  But  these  instances  of  the  revival  of  long 
latent  powers  and  susceptibilities  admonish  sinners  that,  however 
memory  may  slumber  and  conscience  be  seared,  they  are  not  dead 
but  only  sleeping,  and  may  at  any  time  awake  with  all  their  terrific 
energy. 

We  are  not  justified  in  declaring  that  any  particular  evil  is  the 
punishment  of  any  particular  sin,  unless  we  can  trace  its  connec¬ 
tion  with  the  sin  as  its  consequence  according  to  the  constitution 
of  things.  But  the  many  instances  in  which  the  evidence  of  the 
connection  is  undeniable  exemplify  the  reality  and  illustrate  the 
significance  of  punishment  coming  on  the  sinner  as  a  consequence 
of  his  sin  through  his  own  constitution  and  that  of  the  moral  and 
of  the  physical  system ;  and  they  thus  answer  the  objections 
against  this  doctrine.  Doubtless  there  are  many  punishments  of 
sin  thus  coming  on  the  sinner  in  this  life,  which  through  the  limi¬ 
tation  of  our  knowledge  we  cannot  identify  as  such.  And  we  may 
reasonably  suppose  that  there  will  be  punishments  after  death 
which  will  come  in  the  same  manner. 

and  passengers  were  thrown  upon  the  water.  A  man  returning  from  Cali¬ 
fornia  was  floating  on  a  plank.  As  he  was  becoming  exhausted  he  heard 
distinctly  his  mother’s  voice  speaking  from  the  air  above  him  and  saying, 
‘  Johnny,  did  you  take  those  grapes  ?  ’  In  telling  of  this  after  his  rescue,  he 
said  that  when  he  was  a  little  boy  a  friend  of  the  family  had  sent  some  rare 
and  choice  grapes  for  his  sister,  who  was  near  death  in  consumption.  See¬ 
ing  them  on  a  table  in  the  hall,  he  ate  them.  Soon  after,  his  mother,  looking 
for  the  grapes,  said  to  him  the  words  which  he  heard  when  floating  on  the 
sea.  As  she  pointed  out  his  selfishness  and  unkindness  in  taking  grapes 
sent  for  his  suffering  sister,  he  was  greatly  ashamed  and  distressed.  But  he 
said  he  had  not  thought  of  the  event  for  twenty  years.  Oliver  W.  Holmes, 
in  his  “  Mechanism  in  Thought  and  Morals,”  says  :  “  A.  had  a  bond  against 
B.  for  several  hundred  dollars.  When  it  became  due,  he  searched  for  it  but 
could  not  find  it.  He  told  the  facts  to  B.,  who  denied  having  given  the  bond, 
and  intimated  a  fraudulent  design  on  the  part  of  A.,  who  was  compelled  to 
submit  to  his  loss  and  the  charge  against  him.  Years  afterwards,  A.  was 
bathing  in  the  Charles  River,  when  he  was  seized  with  cramp  and  nearly 
drowned.  On  coming  to  his  senses,  he  went  to  his  book-case,  took  out  a 
book  and  from  between  its  leaves  took  the  missing  bond.  In  the  sudden 
picture  of  his  entire  life,  which  flashed  upon  him  as  he  was  sinking,  the  act 
of  putting  the  bond  in  the  book  and  the  book  in  the  book-case  had  re-pre¬ 
sented  itself.” 


492  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


The  conclusion  is  that  the  doctrine  does  not  deny  God’s 

9 

action  in  punishing  nor  lessen  the  significance  of  punishment  as 
expressing  God’s  displacency  and  condemnation,  and  as  asserting, 
maintaining,  and  vindicating  the  authority  of  his  law  of  love.  And 
it  demonstrates  that  God’s  action  in  punishing  is  not  arbitrary, 
but  is  in  accordance  with  the  fundamental  principles  and  ideals 
eternal  in  the  divine  Reason,  with  the  constitution  of  personal 
beings,  and  with  the  constitution  of  the  moral  and  of  the  physical 
system  ;  and  that  it  is  effected  through  agencies  in  the  universe 
acting  in  accordance  with  its  constitution  and  laws.  This  doctrine 
is  illustrated  in  our  Saviour’s  parable  of  the  branch  and  the  vine. 
The  branch  torn  from  the  vine  ceases  to  bear  fruit,  withers,  and 
becomes  fit  only  to  be  burned,  in  accordance  with  the  constitu¬ 
tion  and  laws  of  the  vine  and  its  environment.  So  a  person  who 
has  alienated  himself  from  God  in  sin  and  so  has  shut  out  from 
his  spirit  all  the  quickening  and  nourishing  influences  of  his 
heavenly  environment,  must  become  spiritually  withered ;  there 
must  be  at  once  an  end  of  all  spiritual  growth  and  well-being  and 
of  all  fruitful  productiveness  of  good  for  others.  And  as  in  the 
branch,  when  life  has  ceased,  all  the  chemical  and  mechanical 
forces  in  it  and  its  environment  begin  to  act  on  it  to  hasten  its 
decay,  so  when  in  alienation  from  God  the  life  of  love  has  ceased, 
all  the  natural  powers,  desires,  and  passions,  freed  from  the  love 
which  has  vitalized  and  directed  them  and  now  penetrated  and 
directed  by  selfishness,  begin  to  act  in  the  soul  to  disorder,  per¬ 
vert,  and  corrupt  it.  And  the  sinner’s  environment  also  brings  on 
him  temptation  to  sin  and  hastens  his  corruption,  while  the  same 
environment  to  one  vigorous  in  the  life  of  love  would  be  no 
temptation  to  sin,  but  would  repel  from  it ;  as,  for  example,  a 
man  enslaved  under  the  appetite  for  intoxicating  drink,  if  he 
passes  the  door  of  a  grog-shop,  is  irresistibly  tempted  to  go  in, 
while  to  the  temperate  man  the  same  is  positively  repulsive.  The 
person  by  his  own  character,  which  he  has  freely  formed,  deter¬ 
mines  the  influence  of  his  environment  on  him.  As  the  sunshine, 
the  atmosphere,  and  other  cosmic  agencies,  which  had  contributed 
to  the  growth  of  the  branch  while  it  was  alive  in  the  living  vine, 
now  hasten  its  decay,  so  the  same  outward  influences,  which 
hasten  the  sinner’s  corruption,  act  on  one  alive  in  union  with  the 
living  God  and  vigorous  in  the  life  of  love,  to  quicken  and  develop 
him  in  spiritual  life,  growth,  and  fruitfulness.  The  result  comes 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


493 


about  in  accordance  with  the  constitution  of  things  as  really  as 
does  the  growth  or  the  withering  of  the  branch.  Accordingly 
Bishop  Butler  says  :  “  We  are  at  present  actually  under  God’s 
government  in  the  strictest  and  most  proper  sense ;  in  such  a 
sense  that  he  rewards  and  punishes  us.  .  .  .  Whether  the  pleas¬ 
ure  or  pain  which  thus  follows  upon  our  behavior  be  owing 
to  the  Author  of  nature’s  acting  upon  us  every  moment  in  which 
we  feel  it,  or  to  his  having  at  once  contrived  and  executed  his 
own  part  in  the  plan  of  the  world,  makes  no  alteration  as  to  the 
matter  before  us.”  1  Even  if  God  in  punishing  inflicted  stripes 
on  the  sinner  with  his  own  hand  or  blew  the  wrathful  fires  with 
his  own  breath,  still  it  would  be  only  through  the  physical  consti¬ 
tution  of  the  sinner  that  the  infliction  could  cause  pain.  Even  if, 
with  like  directness,  he  tortured  the  sinner  with  spiritual  anguish, 
it  could  be  only  through  the  sinner’s  constitution  as  spirit  that 
the  infliction  could  cause  anguish.  Even  a  miracle  must  be 
wrought  within  the  universe  and  in  harmony  with  the  fundamental 
principles,  laws,  ideals,  and  ends  of  the  absolute  Reason,  and 
therefore  with  the  constitution  of  the  universe  which  is  deter¬ 
mined  by  these  principles,  laws,  and  ends.  A  miracle,  therefore, 
does  not  violate  the  fundamental  constitution  and  laws  of  the 
universe  nor  interrupt  its  continuity.  It  interrupts  only  some 
factual  sequence  of  cause  and  effect  by  the  action  of  a  new  and 
sufficient  cause.  Even  the  coming  of  God  in  Christ  is  not  con¬ 
trary  to  the  fundamental  constitution  and  laws  of  the  universe,  but 
rather  the  consummation  of  the  continuous  action  of  God  imma¬ 
nent  in  the  universe  and  ever  coming  near  to  man  in  the  courses 
of  human  history,  revealing  himself  to  men,  seeking  them  in 
infinite  love  to  bring  them  back  into  communion  and  union  with 
himself,  and  continuing  this  consummate  revelation  through  all 
ages  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  “  taking  of  the  things  of  Christ  and  show¬ 
ing  them  unto  us.” 

Another  objection  is  that  the  punishment  of  sin  by  sin  is  mean¬ 
ingless  ;  that  it  would  not  be  punishment  in  any  real  significance 
of  the  word,  and  would  not  have  any  influence  to  deter  from  sin. 
This  objection  is  founded  on  misapprehension  of  the  doctrine 
objected  to. 

Some  suppose  the  doctrine  to  be  that  the  only  punishment  of 
sin  is  the  remorse  which  the  sin  occasions.  So  Mr.  Constable 


1  “  Analogy,”  Part  I.,  chap.  ii. 


494  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


says  :  “  Imagine  a  house  attacked  by  burglars  and  think  of  the 
effect  of  this  remonstrance,  ‘  Consider,  my  friends,  how  your  con¬ 
sciences  will  sting  you  for  this  by  and  by.’  ”  1 

Others  suppose  it  to  mean  that  God  by  his  own  efficiency  will 
punish  a  person  for  sin  by  causing  him  to  commit  more  sin ;  as 
if  the  punishment  of  a  thief  would  be  simply  by  causing  him  to 
steal  again.  So  Schleiermacher  argues  that  a  punishment  must 
be  something  superadded  to  the  sin  and  therefore  cannot  be  the 
sin  itself.  But  the  doctrine  is  not  that  sin  is  in  this  sense  pun¬ 
ished  by  committing  further  acts  of  sin,  but  by  the  privation  and 
evil  which  the  person  by  his  sin  brings  upon  himself  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  the  constitution  of  man  and  of  the  universe.  In  this, 
as  well  as  in  some  other  common  forms  of  objection,  there  is  the 
underlying  error  that  sin  consists  in  isolated  volitions  or  inten¬ 
tional  acts,  without  recognition  of  the  continuity  of  character. 
If  we  recur  to  the  psychological  definition  of  character  (Chap. 
XIX.),  the  objection  is  seen  to  be  of  no  force.  Sin  is  essentially 
the  choice  of  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service  ;  it 
is  a  free  act  of  choice  and  yet  abides  as  character ;  it  is  mani¬ 
fested  in  and  strengthened  by  subordinate  choices  and  volitional 
action  ;  thereby  it  determines  the  formation  of  habits  ;  it  perverts 
the  intellect  and  the  feelings ;  it  darkens  and  sears  the  con¬ 
science  ;  it  issues  in  moral  impotence  for  seeking  the  true  good, 
in  moral  incapacity  even  to  appreciate  it  as  good,  in  spiritual 
bondage  to  sin,  in  spiritual  insensibility,  and  the  death  in  tres¬ 
passes  and  sin.  In  its  essence  as  the  supreme  choice  of  self  it  is 
alienation  from  God  and  enmity  against  him;  it  involves  the 
sinner’s  conflict  with  himself  and  with  the  moral  system ;  it 
changes  his  relation  to  the  physical  system  so  that  even  in  it  for 
him  all  things  work  for  evil.  Here  then  we  may  distinguish  be¬ 
tween  the  sin  as  the  person’s  free  choice  and  action,  and  the  conse¬ 
quences  which  the  sin  brings  on  him.  And  because  these  conse¬ 
quences  come  on  him  in  accordance  with  the  constitution  of  the 
person  himself  and  of  the  universe  and  through  the  agencies 
therein  acting  according  to  the  laws  of  their  being,  we  recognize 
them  as  coming  from  God  in  the  punishment  of  sin.  And 
through  it  all,  the  character  is  fundamentally  the  sinner’s  own 
free  abiding  and  supreme  choice.  Thus  the  person  by  his  own 
sin  brings  his  punishment  on  himself.  This  is  the  truth  some- 
1  Duration  and  Nature  of  Future  Punishment,  p.  165. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


495 


times  loosely  expressed  by  saying  that  sin  is  its  own  punishment. 
The  meaning  is  that  the  penalty  consists  in  the  corruption  of  the 
sinner’s  own  being,  in  the  perversion  of  his  relations  to  the  moral 
or  spiritual,  as  well  as  to  the  physical  system,  in  his  alienation 
from  God,  and  in  all  the  privation,  suffering,  and  evil  which  he 
brings  on  himself  by  his  own  sin,  and  which  are  inseparable  from 
it  according  to  the  constitution  of  the  universe.  Because  sinful 
action  forms  sinful  habits  and  confirms  sinful  character,  this 
deterioration  of  character  and  the  consequent  continued  repeti¬ 
tion  of  sinful  acts  are  among  the  woes  which  men  bring  on  them¬ 
selves  by  sinning.  In  this  sense  we  may  say  truly  that  sinfulness 
or  deterioration  of  character  is  one  of  the  penalties  for  sinful 
action.  This  accords  with  the  teaching  of  the  Bible,  “  Whatso¬ 
ever  a  man  soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap.”  Paul  here  recog¬ 
nizes  the  connection  between  sin  and  its  penalty  as  analogous  to 
the  natural  connection  between  the  seed  and  its  growth  and  fruit. 
The  harvest  will  be  of  the  same  kind  with  the  seed.  Our  Lord 
declares  that  the  blessing  of  those  who  hunger  and  thirst  after 
righteousness  is  that  they  shall  be  filled  with  the  righteousness. 
As  a  hungry  child  cannot  be  satisfied  with  a  rattle,  but  only  with 
the  food  for  which  it  hungers,  so  they  who  hunger  and  thirst  after 
righteousness  can  be  satisfied  only  with  the  righteousness  on 
which  their  hearts  are  set.  It  is  equally  impossible  for  those 
who  hunger  and  thirst  only  for  selfish  acquisitions  to  be  satisfied 
with  righteousness.  Their  chosen  selfish  ends  must  be  their  only 
portion.  The  same  is  the  teaching  of  the  Old  Testament :  “  Thine 
own  wickedness  shall  correct  thee  and  thy  backsliding  shall  re¬ 
prove  thee  :  know,  therefore,  and  see  that  it  is  an  evil  thing  and  a 
bitter  that  thou  hast  forsaken  the  Lord  thy  God  and  that  my  fear 
is  not  in  thee  ”  ;  “  For  that  they  hated  knowledge  and  did  not 
choose  the  fear  of  the  Lord,  they  would  none  of  my  counsel  and 
despised  all  my  reproofs,  therefore  shall  they  eat  of  the  fruit  of 
their  own  way  and  be  filled  with  their  own  devices ;  for  the  back¬ 
sliding  of  the  simple  shall  slay  them  and  the  prosperity  of  fools 
shall  destroy  them.”  1 

The  distinction  has  been  suggested  that  sin  is  its  own  punish¬ 
ment  only  so  far  as  it  is  bondage  or  suffering,  —  not  in  so  far  as 
the  sinner  delights  in  his  sin.  But  whatever  truth  there  may  be 

1  Gal.  vi.  7,  8;  Matth.  v.  6;  Jerem.  ii.  19;  Prov.  i.  31;  Psalm  cvi.  15; 
Rom.  i.  18-32;  2  Thess.  ii.  10-12;  Rev.  xxii.  11. 


496  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


in  this  distinction,  it  is  still  a  fact  that  the  pleasure  which  the 
sinner  finds  in  sin  is  one  of  its  most  fatal  characteristics.  For  the 
sinner  has  so  drowned  himself  in  selfishness  that  he  has  made 
himself  incapable  of  enjoyment  in  acts  of  Christian  trust,  and 
finds  his  joy  only  in  selfish  pursuits  and  acquisitions.  The  very 
pleasure  which  he  feels  is  itself  a  motive  inflaming  him  to  greater 
eagerness  in  his  selfish  pursuits  and  so  intensifying  the  fever 
which  is  consuming  him.1 

Nitzsch  argues  that  the  consequences  of  sin  cannot  be  identi¬ 
fied  with  its  punishment,  “  because  the  eternal  consequences  of 
their  sin  exist  even  among  the  blessed,  not  as  a  punishment,  but 
as  a  consciousness  of  grace  and  thankfulness.”  2  It  is  true,  as  I 
have  already  explained,  that  if  a  person  lives  in  supreme  self¬ 
ishness  and  sin  during  any  period  of  his  existence,  he  sustains 
an  irretrievable  loss.  But  when  he  yields  to  God’s  redeeming 
grace  and  returns  to  him,  he  is  no  longer  under  condemnation, 
but  restored  to  the  favor  of  God  ;  and  under  the  divine  influences, 
and  in  union  with  God,  his  character  no  longer  deteriorates,  but 
is  developed  till  he  becomes  perfected  in  the  life  of  love.  Even 
then,  he  remembers  with  penitence  the  fact  of  his  sin,  which  can 
never  be  erased  from  his  history,  and  adores  God  for  the  grace 
which  has  redeemed  him,  and  rejoices  in  it.  Joy  and  gratitude  in 
the  consciousness  of  God’s  graciousness  are  not  privation  or  suf¬ 
fering,  they  are  not  evil,  either  essential  or  relative.  They  are 
not  brought  on  the  sinner  by  his  sin,  but  by  his  forsaking  sin  in 
turning  to  God  and  accepting  his  grace.  The  joy  which  one  feels 
in  recovery  from  disease  is  not  caused  by  the  disease,  but  by  his 
getting  rid  of  the  disease.  There  will  be  a  peculiarity  in  the  joy 
as  occasioned  by  recovery  from  disease.  But  the  person’s  enjoy¬ 
ment  and  well-being  cannot  be  greater  on  the  whole  than  if  he 

1  Cicero  says,  “No  greater  pest  was  ever  given  by  nature  to  man  than 
sensual  pleasure,  greedy  desires  of  which  incite  to  rash  and  unbridled  efforts 
to  possess  it.  Hence  arise  treasons,  revolts  against  the  republic,  clandes¬ 
tine  conferences  with  its  enemies  ;  there  is  no  crime,  no  scandalous  action 
to  which  the  desire  of  pleasure  may  not  impel ;  adulteries  and  all  shameful 
deeds  of  that  kind  are  incited  by  nothing  but  the  enticements  of  pleasure. 
While  neither  nature  nor  any  god  has  given  to  man  any  more  excellent  gift 
than  reason,  nothing  is  more  inimical  to  this  divine  endowment  than  pleasure. 
Under  its  reign  there  is  no  place  for  self-control  ( teviperantiae )  nor  for  any 
virtue.  ...  If  greater  and  longer  continued  it  would  extinguish  the  light  of 
reason.”  (De  Senectute,  xii.) 

2  Christlichen  Lehre,  §  219,  p.  402,  note  3. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


497 


had  remained  in  health,  escaping  all  the  pains  and  anxieties  of  the 
disease  and  enjoying,  instead,  life  and  work  in  all  the  vigor  of 
health  without  interruption. 

There  has  been  discussion  whether  Christ  saves  primarily  from 
punishment  or  from  sin.  But,  according  to  the  doctrine  here 
presented,  it  is  impossible  to  save  from  punishment  without  saving 
from  sin  in  its  fundamental  character  as  alienation  from  God  in 
the  choice  of  self  as  the  supreme  object  of  trust  and  service. 

It  is  properly  said  that  sinners  bring  their  own  punishment  on 
themselves.  x\s  free  agents  they  are  the  responsible  authors  of 
their  own  sin ;  therefore,  since  sin  and  punishment  are  insepar¬ 
able,  they  who  sin  are  responsible  as  bringing  on  themselves  their 
own  punishment.  Yet  this  does  not  exclude  the  action  of  God, 
nor  make  the  punishment  any  less  an  expression  of  his  righteous 
condemnation  of  sinners  and  his  displacency  toward  them.1 

Here,  it  is  asked,  What  do  we  gain  by  the  fact  that  the  penalty 
is  brought  on  the  sinner  by  his  own  sin  in  accordance  with  the 
constitution  of  things,  since,  after  all,  it  comes  through  these  agen¬ 
cies  from  God,  and  expresses  his  condemnation  and  displacency. 
When  Mr.  Spencer  says  that  the  cruelty  of  a  Fiji  god  devouring 
the  souls  of  the  dead  is  “  small  compared  with  the  cruelty  of  the 
God  who  condemns  men  to  tortures  that  are  eternal,”  2  what  help 
does  this  doctrine  give  us  in  replying  to  him?  The  question 
assumes  that  the  only  way  of  vindicating  God’s  righteousness  in 
respect  to  the  punishment  of  sinners,  is  to  demonstrate  that  he 
has  no  hand  in  it  directly  or  indirectly,  —  that  is,  by  proving  that 

1  Swedenborg  expresses  this  doctrine  in  such  a  way  as  seemingly  to  exclude 
all  divine  agency  from  the  infliction  of  punishment :  “  Should  any  of  wicked 
character  go  to  heaven,  they  would  gasp  there  for  breath  and  writhe  like  a 
fish  out  of  water,  or  like  an  animal  in  an  air-pump  from  which  the  air  is 
exhausted.  .  .  .  Nothing  of  punishment,  which  evil  spirits  suffer  in  the  other 
world,  is  from  the  Lord,  but  from  evil  itself ;  for  evil  is  so  connected  with 
its  own  punishment  that  they  cannot  be  separated.  When  men  are  in 
opposition  to  the  Divine,  and  so  prevent  the  influx  of  God’s  love  and  mercy 
into  themselves,  they  cast  themselves  into  the  evil  of  punishment,  that  is, 
into  hell.  This  appears  like  unmercifulness  and  revenge  from  the  Divine  on 
account  of  the  evil  sinners  have  done,  when  nothing  of  the  sort  is  in  the 
Divine,  but  is  in  the  evil  itself.  .  .  .  The  man  who  is  in  evil  is  tied  to  hell  and 
is  actually  there  as  to  his  spirit ;  and  after  death  he  desires  nothing  more 
than  to  be  where  his  own  evil  is.  Therefore,  after  death  the  man  casts  him¬ 
self  into  hell,  not  the  Lord.”  (Heaven  and  Hell,  54,  547,  548,  550.) 

2  “  Religion,  a  Retrospect  and  a  Prospect,”  Nineteenth  Century,  Jan.  1884, 

p.  6. 


VOL.  II.  —  32 


49&  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


God  does  not  punish  sinners  in  any  way  whatever.  It  was  shown 
in  the  outset  that  the  doctrine  is  not  designed  to  disprove  God’s 
agency  in  punishing,  but  to  assert  it,  and  to  demonstrate  its 
reasonableness  and  moral  necessity,  and  the  righteousness  and 
benevolence  of  God  in  it.  What  we  gain  is  to  show  that  it  is 
essential  to  the  existence  of  a  moral  system  that  it  be  so  consti- 
tuted%  that,  if  any  persons  in  it  sin,  they  shall  be  punished.  If 
God  had  constituted  a  universe  in  which  no  discrimination  was 
made  between  those  who  live  in  universal  love  and  those,  if  any,  who 
live  in  selfishness,  it  could  not  be  a  moral  system,  for  it  would  be 
under  no  moral  law ;  well-being  would  be  insured  to  the  selfish 
and  wicked  as  completely  as  to  those  who  love  God  with  all  their 
hearts  and  their  neighbor  as  themselves.  We  gain  also  the  fact 
that  punishment  is  not  inflicted  arbitrarily  and  capriciously  by 
almighty  power  unregulated  by  law,  but  in  accordance  with  the 
principles  and  laws  of  reason,  in  obedience  to  the  law  of  love, 
and  for  the  realization  of  the  highest  ideals  and  ends  of  wisdom 
and  love.  We  gain  also  the  knowledge  that  God  has  given  to  the 
universe  a  constitution  and  laws  accordant  with  the  principles, 
laws,  and  ends  regulating  his  own  action ;  that,  therefore,  it  is  not 
foreign  to  him,  and  does  not  shut  him  out  so  that  his  action  in  it 
can  be  only  irruptive  and  interruptive,  but  that  he  is  immanently 
active  in  it  and  progressively  realizing  the  archetypal  ideals  of  all 
perfection  and  well-being  possible  in  a  finite  universe.  His  dec¬ 
laration  of  his  law  is,  on  the  one  hand,  the  declaration  of  the 
principles  and  laws  regulative  of  all  action,  and  of  the  ideals  of 
wisdom  and  love  which  are  to  be  progressively  realized,  all 
of  which  are  eternal  and  archetypal  in  the  divine  Reason  and 
obligatory  in  all  action  alike  of  God  and  man.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  the  revelation  of  the  actual  concrete  realities  of  the 
universe  thus  conditioned,  and  a  command  to  all  persons  to  take 
notice  of  these  realities,  and  to  conduct  their  lives  with  constant 
reference  to  them.  A  ship-owner  provides  his  ship  with  nautical 
books  and  charts,  with  compass  and  instruments  for  making 
observations  of  the  heavens.  The  captain  accepts  the  command 
and  the  sailors  embark,  knowing  that  what  these  reveal  to  them 
as  they  use  them  are  the  imperative  laws  of  the  ship,  which  they  can 
disregard  only  at  their  peril.  On  the  one  hand,  these  reveal  the 
eternal  principles  of  mathematics  and  the  unchanging  laws  which 
guide  the  calculations  and  determine  the  significance  and  result 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


499 


of  the  observations.  On  the  other  hand,  they  disclose  the  actual 
realities  of  the  sea,  its  rocks,  islands,  and  coast-lines,  and  the 
actual  realities  of  the  heavens,  the  positions  of  the  sun  and  stars, 
which  disclose  the  actual  position  and  the  right  course  of  the 
ship.  In  neither  aspect  are  they  arbitrary  or  changeable  com¬ 
mands.  If  the  seamen  fail  to  obey  these  laws,  that  is,  to  direct 
the  ship  in  conformity  with  these  principles  and  with  these  reali¬ 
ties  of  the  sea,  the  land,  and  the  skies,  and  the  ship  is  therefore 
wrecked,  the  penalty  is  brought  on  them  according  to  the  consti¬ 
tution  of  things,  by  their  disobedience  to  the  laws  of  the  ship  and 
her  voyage.  We  properly  say  they  brought  it  on  themselves. 
And  when  they  stand  on  a  desert  island,  ready  to  perish,  they 
cannot  complain  that  the  owner  of  the  ship  was  unjust  and  cruel 
in  imposing  on  them  so  rigid  and  immutable  a  law,  with  so  terrible 
and  unfailing  a  penalty,  and  with  so  tremendous  risks.  The  owner 
provided  the  charts  and  all  the  nautical  instruments  in  wisdom 
and  good-will ;  his  action  was  right  and  beneficent,  but  it  was 
beneficence  regulated  by  immutable  law.  God  has  constituted 
the  universe  in  accordance  with  the  immutable  truths  and  laws  of 
eternal  Reason.  He  has  constituted  it  thus  in  wisdom  and  love, 
in  benevolence  regulated  by  righteousness.  In  the  universe  thus 
constituted,  the  law  of  love  declares  both  a  fundamental  and 
immutable  principle  of  reason  and  a  factual  reality  in  the  consti¬ 
tution  and  evolution  of  the  universe.  Every  person  must  conduct 
his  life  in  careful  recognition  of  this  great  reality  and  in  strict  con¬ 
formity  with  it,  or  be  utterly  wrecked.  And  no  man  can,  without 
foolishness,  complain  that  God  is  cruel  for  putting  him  under  this 
law  of  love  and  rigorously  bringing  on  him  the  full  penalty  of 
disobedience.  The  sinner  must  also  acknowledge  that  by  his 
disregard  of  the  great  realities  of  his  own  being  and  of  his 
environment,  he  by  his  own  action  has  brought  the  penalty  on 
himself. 

The  principal  difficulty  which  led  John  Foster  to  doubt  the 
endlessness  of  the  punishment  of  sinners  was,  that  the  punish¬ 
ment  is  too  great  for  the  offence ;  that  it  cannot  be  consistent 
with  the  righteousness  and  benevolence  of  God  that  endless  suf¬ 
fering  should  be  the  penalty  for  the  sins  of  a  short  human  life. 
If,  indeed,  persons  are  to  cease  from  sin  at  death,  and  the  penalty 
is  wholly  external  and  unnatural,  the  objection  may  have  weight. 
But  the  view  which  I  have  presented  of  the  continuity  of  char- 


500  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


acter  and  the  inseparableness  of  punishment  from  sinful  character 
takes  away  all  the  force  of  this  objection.  Archbishop  Tillotson 
says  :  “  The  justice  of  God  doth  punish  only  the  sins  which  men 
have  committed  in  this  life.”  This  has  been  a  common  doc¬ 
trine  in  theology.  So  Paley  says  that  when  Paul  speaks  of  the 
punishment  of  hell  inflicted  “  on  every  soul  of  man  that  doeth 
evil,”  he  “  means  evidently  the  evil  done  by  him  in  this  life.” 
Mr.  Landis  says  of  certain  texts  :  “  In  all  these,  and  in  multitudes 
of  other  passages,  there  is  a  clear  retrospective  reference  to  sin 
perpetrated  here  as  the  sole  ground  of  the  judicial  decision  and 
the  succeeding  punishment.”  1  But  the  texts,  which  declare  the 
doom  of  sinners  for  their  sins  committed  in  this  life,  neither  assert 
nor  imply  that  the  punishment  is  only  for  the  sins  of  this  life,  or 
that  they  will  cease  to  sin  at  death.  If  sinners  are  punished  only 
for  the  sins  committed  in  this  life,  then  either  they  will  cease  to 
sin  at  death,  or,  if  they  continue  to  sin,  they  will  not  be  punished 
for  it,  and  in  either  case  they  are  no  longer  in  a  moral  system, 
nor  under  the  moral  government  of  God.  Mr.  Constable  denies 
that  the  lost  in  hell  are  capable  of  sinning.  He  says,  “Just  fancy 
an  earthly  judge  sentencing  a  criminal  to  a  punishment  too  severe 
for  t-he  offence  committed,  and  then  gravely  justifying  his  sentence 
by  the  observation  that  he  would  be  sure  to  deserve  it  by  his 
conduct  in  jail.”  2  But  the  doctrine  is  not  that  God  punishes  a 
sinner  for  any  sin  before  he  has  committed  it,  but  only  for  sin  of 
which  he  is  already  guilty  ;  and  that  while  undergoing  the  punish¬ 
ment  he  continues  to  sin,  and  for  this  he  deserves  further  punish¬ 
ment.  The  argument  from  the  analogy  of  human  government,  if 
it  is  to  be  used,  confirms  our  doctrine  instead  of  refuting  it.  The 
term  of  a  criminal’s  imprisonment  is  often  shortened  for  good 
behavior,  and  if  the  prisoner  is  convicted  of  a  crime  committed 
during  his  imprisonment,  he  is  sentenced  to  further  punishment 
for  it. 

The  decisive  refutation  of  the  conception  that  punishment  after 
death  is  for  the  sins  of  this  life  only,  is  that  it  implies  a  complete 
breach  between  this  life  and  the  life  after  death,  a  breach  wholly 
artificial  and  magical,  sundering  all  connection  between  them  in 

1  Tillotson,  Sermons,  No.  35,  “The  Eternity  of  Hell  Torments,”  vol.  iii. 
p.  9 ;  Paley,  Sermon  31,  “  The  Terror  of  the  Lord,”  W orks,  p.  701,  ed.  London 
1850;  Landis,  “  Immortality  of  the  Soul,”  395. 

2  The  Duration  and  Nature  of  Future  Punishment,  pp.  154,  156. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


501 


the  constitution  of  things.  It  involves  the  abrogation  of  the  law 
of  the  continuity  of  moral  character,  the  abrogation  even  of  the 
moral  system  and  the  moral  government  of  God  in  any  signi¬ 
ficance  in  which  moral  government  is  possible.  It  implies  that 
sin  consists  of  isolated  volitional  acts  and  overlooks  the  fact  that 
acts  of  sin  are  expressions  of  the  underlying  character  and  con¬ 
tinually  confirm  and  develop  it.  It  overlooks  the  fact  that  this 
sinful  character  is  selfishness,  that  it  involves  in  itself  alienation 
from  God,  the  depravation  of  the  sinner’s  own  soul,  his  conflict 
with  himself,  with  God,  with  the  moral  system  and  even  the  phys¬ 
ical  system  ;  and  that  thus  the  punishment  is  in  its  essence  insep¬ 
arable  from  the  sinful  character.  It  implies  the  cessation  of  the 
sinful  character  at  death  and  of  the  punishment  involved  in  it ; 
and  the  punishment  could  be  only  some  external  and  literal 
infliction  of  the  fire  and  the  worm  for  sins  committed  in  this  life. 
And  if  the  sinner  at  death  ceases  to  be  selfish  and  sinful,  by  the 
same  reasoning  it  must  follow  that  the  Christian  at  death  ceases 
to  love  God  with  all  his  heart  and  his  neighbor  as  himself.  This 
conception  implies  also  an  analogous  breach  in  the  continuity  of 
God’s  character.  During  this  life  God  seeks  the  sinner  before 
the  sinner  seeks  God ;  and  through  all  his  sinful  career  encom¬ 
passes  him  with  his  love,  waiting  to  be  gracious  to  him  ;  the  bar¬ 
rier  to  the  sinner’s  return  to  God  and  acceptance  by  him  is  not 
in  God’s  unwillingness  to  receive  the  returning  penitent,  but  in 
the  sinner’s  fixed  unwillingness  to  return ;  would  he  but  yield  to 
God’s  love  and  accept  his  offered  grace,  God  would  joyfully 
receive  him.  But  the  supposition  is  that  at  the  instant  of  death 
God’s  attitude  toward  the  sinner  is  totally  changed ;  he  no  longer 
looks  on  the  sinner  with  compassion  and  encompasses  him  with 
his  love  ;  even  if  a  sinner  for  whom  Christ  died  should  repent 
and  truly  return  to  God  in  loving  trust,  God  would  not  receive  him, 
because,  according  to  the  theory,  he  must  suffer  endless  punish¬ 
ment  inflicted  by  God  for  the  sins  committed  before  death.1 

1  “  If  but  a  single  drop  of  the  sweetness  of  God’s  goodness  fell  on  the 
hopeless  region  of  the  lost,  it  would  extinguish  all  its  flames  and  change  it 
into  paradise  in  an  instant.”  —  Rev.  J.  J.  O’Connor,  D.  D  ,  “  Conferences  on 
the  Blessed  Trinity,”  1882,  p.  49.  President  Edwards  says  of  lost  sinners 
after  death  :  “  God  has  no  love  to  them  nor  pity  for  them  ;  but  they  are  the 
objects  of  God’s  eternal  hatred.  .  .  He  will  not  only  hate  you,  but  he  will 
have  you  in  the  utmost  contempt ;  no  place  shall  be  thought  fit  for  you,  but 
to  be  under  his  feet,  to  be  trodden  down  as  the  mire  of  the  street.”  To 


502  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


Thus  the  theory  implies  that  the  whole  moral  system  would  be 
subverted.  God  and  man  and  their  reciprocal  relations  would  be 
totally  different  in  kind  from  anything  of  which  we  have  know¬ 
ledge  as  the  moral  system  and  the  moral  government  of  God.  A 
sinner,  who  without  any  reformation  of  character  has  lost  all 
power  to  sin,  is  bereft  of  the  essential  elements  and  potencies  of 
personality.  He  is  as  one  bereft  of  reason  and  free  will.  It 
would  be  as  if  a  government  should  first  reduce  a  person  to 
idiocy  or  insanity  and  then  continue  to  torture  him  for  what  he 
had  done  when  sane.  Then  if  a  person  had  been  a  moral  agent 
and  had  sinned  but  one  hour  and  then  had  died,  he  would  never 
sin  again ;  but  he  would  be  punished  everlastingly  for  the  sin  of 
that  one  hour ;  or  else  he  would  suffer  under  the  punishment  so 
severely  and  so  long  as  to  wear  out  his  spirit  and  annihilate  him.1 

The  alternative  supposition  is  that  sinners  continue  to  sin  after 
death.  But  if  so  they  are  not  punished  for  these  sins,  because, 
according  to  the  theory  in  question,  they  are  punished  only  for 
the  sins  committed  in  this  life.  This  implies  an  analogous  sub¬ 
version  of  the  moral  order  of  the  universe  and  of  the  righteous 
government  of  God.  It  supposes  the  continuance  of  sin  forever 
with  absolute  impunity. 

Another  objection  is,  that,  if  punishment  is  brought  on  the  sin¬ 
ner  through  the  constitution  of  the  universe,  then  the  remission 
of  penalty  through  the  forgiveness  of  the  sinner  is  impossible. 
The  truth  in  this  objection  is  that  the  consequences  of  sin  are 
endless,  as  I  have  already  shown.  This  is  implied  in  the  fact 
that  sin  is  never  better  for  the  universe  than  love  to  God  and 
man  would  be  in  its  stead.  A  person  lives  in  sin  seventy  years. 
If  he  then  repents  and  lives  ever  afterwards  the  life  of  love,  this 
can  never  undo  the  evil  deeds  of  the  seventy  years,  nor  the  fact 
of  the  evil  influence  which  they  actually  exerted  on  the  person 
himself  and  on  others.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  forgiveness 
is  impossible.  When  a  sinner  under  the  renewing  influence  of 

sinners  still  living  he  says,  “  The  God  who  holds  you  over  the  pit  of  hell, 
much  as  one  holds  a  spider  or  some  loathsome  insect  over  the  fire,  abhors 
you  and  is  dreadfully  provoked ;  his  wrath  toward  you  burns  like  fire  ;  he 
looks  upon  you  as  worthy  of  nothing  else  but  to  be  cast  into  the  fire.” 
(“  The  End  of  the  Wicked  Contemplated,”  sect.  ii. ;  Sermon,  “  Sinners  in  the 
Hands  of  an  Angry  God,”  Works,  Ed.,  London,  1840,  vol.  ii.  pp.  10,  209.) 

1  Constable,  “  Duration  and  Nature  of  Future  Punishment,”  pp.  m-113, 
205,  207. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


503 


the  Spirit  turns  to  God  in  Christ  in  faith  and  repentance,  his 
punishment  is  remitted  in  the  sense  that  he  is  no  longer  the 
object  of  God’s  condemnation  and  displacency.  “  There  is  now 
no  condemnation  to  them  who  are  in  Christ  Jesus,  who  walk  not 
after  the  flesh,  but  after  the  Spirit  ”  (Rom.  viii.  1).  The  God  in 
Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself  accepts  the  penitent 
and  trusting  sinner,  because  he  sees  that  his  character  is  fun¬ 
damentally  changed  ;  for  in  all  finite  persons  trust  in  God  is  the 
beginning  and  the  continuous  vitality  of  all  right  character.  The 
person  is  no  longer  living  in  self-sufficiency,  self-will,  self-seeking 
and  self-glorifying,  but  is  trusting  and  serving  God.  He  has  be¬ 
gun  the  life  of  love  to  God  with  all  the  heart  and  to  his  neighbor 
as  himself.  Though  the  man,  thus  beginning  to  “  walk  in  newness 
of  life,”  is  not  yet  perfected  and  in  the  course  of  his  spiritual  and 
moral  growth  and  development  will  have  many  a  sorrow  and 
many  a  conflict  as  consequences  of  his  previous  life  of  sin,  yet 
God  sees  that  his  new  character  in  its  vitalizing  principle  is  right, 
and  that  eventually  he  will  be  perfected  in  holiness,  attaining  the 
moral  likeness  of  God  as  revealed  under  human  limitations  and 
conditions  in  Christ ;  therefore  God  condemns  him  no  longer, 
but  accepts  him  as  justified  freely  through  God’s  grace.  But  the 
expression  of  God’s  condemnation  and  displacency  are  of  the 
essence  of  punishment.  When  these  have  ceased,  punishment  in 
its  distinctive  significance  ceases  also.  There  will  be  continued 
discipline,  but  no  punishment.  Besides  this,  the  redeemed  sinner 
is  now  reunited  to  God  in  faith  and  opens  his  soul  to  receive  the 
quickening  influences  of  God’s  love.  Therefore  his  alienation 
from  God,  in  which  his  punishment  primarily  consists,  has  ceased 
and  he  is  re-established  in  his  normal  union  with  God.  And 
further,  the  process  of  depravation  of  his  own  soul  has  been  ar¬ 
rested  and  the  process  of  purification,  healing,  restoration,  and 
healthy  development  is  going  on.  The  bitterness  of  remorse  has 
given  place  to  the  tenderness  of  penitence.  By  gaining  the  vic¬ 
tory  over  his  evil  propensities  he  is  advancing  towards  peace  and 
harmony  with  himself.  He  is  no  longer  in  antagonism  to  the 
moral  law  and  government  of  God,  but  is  obeying  them  in  love. 
He.  is  already  the  object  of  God’s  special  providence  and  all 
things  are  working  together  for  his  good  because  he  loves  God. 
Evidently,  therefore,  the  fact  that  punishment  comes  from  God 
on  the  sinner  through  the  constitution  of  the  universe  is  no  bar 


504  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


to  God’s  remission  of  the  penalty  in  forgiving  sinners  who  peni¬ 
tently  trust  him.  The  objection  has  force  only  when  the  doctrine 
against  which  it  is  urged  is  falsely  so  presented  as  to  imply  the 
exclusion  of  all  action  of  God  and  all  expression  of  his  condemna¬ 
tion  from  the  punishment. 

We  must  distinguish,  however,  between  the  cessation  of  punish¬ 
ment  and  the  cessation  of  ill-desert.  It  will  always  remain  true 
that  the  sinner  was  guilty  and  deserved  punishment.  Here  it  is 
objected  that,  if  he  deserved  punishment  and  God  did  not  inflict 
it,  then  God  did  not  render  to  him  what  was  due  and  therefore 
has  not  done  him  justice.  This  is  merely  the  recognition  of  the 
necessity  of  atonement ;  in  the  redemption  of  the  sinner  and  the 
forgiveness  of  sin,  God  must  accomplish  it  in  such  a  way  as 
to  assert,  maintain,  and  vindicate  his  righteousness  and  the 
authority,  imperativeness,  and  immutability  of  his  law  in  accept¬ 
ing  and  forgiving  the  sinner  who  trusts  him,  as  really  as  he  does 
in  punishing  him  who  persists  in  sin.  This  he  does  in  redemption 
as  the  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself.  The 
consciousness  of  redemption  through  Christ  from  sin  and  de¬ 
served  penalty  is  perpetuated  forever  in  the  songs  of  the  redeemed 
in  heaven  (Rev.  v.  g;  vii.  14).  It  should  also  be  remembered 
that,  if  punishment  comes  through  the  constitution  of  things, 
it  is  inseparable  from  the  sin  and  comes  on  the  sinner  in  this 
life  so  long  as  he  continues  to  sin. 

4.  The  objection  is  urged  that  the  fear  of  punishment  is  a 
selfish  and  debasing  motive  and  that  appeal  to  it  develops  selfish¬ 
ness  rather  than  love.  From  this  those  who  deny  man’s  immor¬ 
tality  have  often  inferred  that  their  virtue  is  disinterested  and 
therefore  of  a  higher  order  than  that  of  Christians,  who,  they 
assume,  are  actuated  by  the  selfish  desire  to  escape  hell  and  win 
the  blessedness  of  heaven. 

So  far  as  this  objection  is  urged  as  an  argument  against  punish¬ 
ment,  it  is  refuted  by  the  fact  that  the  deterrent  influence  of 
punishment  is  only  one  of  the  reasons  for  its  infliction.  The 
necessity  of  the  punishment  of  transgressors  is  involved  in  the 
idea  of  government  under  law  and  is  essential  to  its  existence 
and  authority.  Because  the  fear  of  punishment  is  not  the  highest 
of  motives,  government  will  not  imperil  its  own  existence  and  dis¬ 
solve  its  laws  into  impotent  advice  by  refusing  to  punish  wrong¬ 
doers.  No  more  will  God  abandon  his  government  under  law  by 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


505 


ceasing  to  discriminate  between  those  who  conform  to  the  law  in 
lives  of  universal  love  and  those  who  disobey  it  in  lives  of  supreme 
selfishness,  and  thus  insuring  to  both  the  attainment  of  equal  per¬ 
fection  and  well-being.  They  who  urge  this  objection  against 
punishment  after  death  must  see  that  it  is  of  equal  force  against  the 
punishment  of  criminals  in  this  life,  and  thus  is  subversive  of  all 
government  under  law,  whether  human  or  divine. 

The  objection  rests  on  an  exclusive  altruism.  It  assumes  that 
the  law  of  love  forbids  all  regard  to  one’s  own  well-being. 
Whereas  the  law  explicitly  recognizes  one’s  self  as  an  object  of 
love  equally  with  one’s  own  neighbor.  It  thus  requires  every 
one  to  seek  wisely  his  own  well-being,  while  respecting  the  rights 
of  his  neighbor  equally  with  his  own  and  benevolently  seeking 
his  good.  And  because  they  who  urge  this  objection  must  be¬ 
lieve  that,  even  in  this  life,  virtue  is  productive  of  more  good 
than  vice,  they  by  their  own  argument  convict  themselves  of 
acting  virtuously  from  a  selfish  motive. 

If  a  person  has  formed  such  a  character  that  he  is  susceptible 
to  no  higher  motive  than  the  fear  of  punishment,  we  may  properly 
urge  that  motive  on  him.  This  may  awaken  him  to  the  fact 
that  he  is  missing  his  true  well-being  and  throwing  away  his 
life  in  the  pursuit  of  unworthy  ends.  It  may  awaken  his  moral 
and  spiritual  susceptibilities  and  powers  and  lead  him  to  see 
his  sinfulness  and  to  return  in  penitence  to  God.  Tlius  the  fear 
of  punishment  may  be  the  occasion  of  a  spiritual  awakening 
which,  by  quickening  the  higher  spiritual  capacities  and  leading 
to  the  life  of  love,  may  entirely  transcend  the  fear  of  punishment 
in  the  spontaneity  of  love  to  God  and  man. 

To  persons  in  the  lower  stages  of  development  or  in  the 

« 

debasement  of  vice  the  fear  of  punishment  is  itself  an  elevating 
motive,  because,  through  the  inseparable  connection  of  punish¬ 
ment  with  the  rightful  authority  of  government  and  law,  it  calls 
attention  to  the  reign  of  righteous  law  as  distinguished  from  the 
reign  of  violence  and  force  directed  by  arbitrary  and  lawless 
will.  The  objection  regards  punishment  as  mere  privation  or 
suffering  inflicted  by  the  violence  of  a  stronger  power.  To  work 
as  a  slave  under  the  lash,  to  be  robbed,  imprisoned,  tortured  by 
lawless  and  despotic  violence,  is  debasing ;  it  gradually  crushes 
the  spirit  and  nobleness  of  true  manhood.  But  this  is  not 
punishment  in  its  true  and  distinctive  significance.  Punishment 


50 6  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


is  inflicted  according  to  law  by  a  government  convicting  the 
transgressor  after  solemn  judicial  investigation,  and  by  the  punish¬ 
ment  asserting,  maintaining  and  vindicating  the  righteousness 
of  the  government  and  the  majesty  and  authority  of  the  law. 
It  is  a  long  step  forward  in  the  development  and  progress  of 
men  when  they  are  brought  out,  like  Israel  from  Egypt,  from 
the  reign  of  despotic  violence  and  overpowering  force  and  placed 
under  the  reign  of  law  enforced  by  penalties  judicially  imposed. 
Lynch  law  defeats  itself  and  indicates  and  accelerates  degeneracy 
toward  barbarism,  because  it  substitutes  fear  of  mob-violence  for 
reverence  for  law.  Thus  punishment  judicially  inflicted  under 
just  law  educates  the  people  to  reverence  for  law  and  rightful 
authority,  and  is  an  important  agency  in  promoting  the  civilization 
and  progress  of  man.  In  like  manner  the  fear  of  the  divine 
punishment  of  sin  calls  attention  to  God’s  law  and  government. 
It  awakens  the  moral  and  spiritual  faculties  and  susceptibilities. 
A  man  who  has  been  brutish,  impelled  by  appetite,  covetousness, 
or  revenge,  rises  to  a  higher  plane  of  thought,  feeling,  and  pur¬ 
pose  when  he  begins  to  look  to  God’s  law  of  love  and  to  the 
inevitable  punishment  of  transgressors,  which  no  power  can 
repeal  and  no  cunning  escape.  This  influence  is  recognized  by 
Pindar : 

“  God,  who  o’ertakes  the  eagle’s  wing 
And  leaves  the  dolphin’s  speed  behind 
In  the  mid  sea ;  whose  chastening  hand  hath  bowed 
The  lofty  spirit  of  the  proud, 

And  given  to  modest  worth  the  unfading  crown.  .  .  . 

Vain  hope  that  guilt  by  time  or  place 
Can  shun  the  searching  eye  of  God.”  1 

Because  punishment  is  thus  inseparable  from  law,  because  it 
reveals  the  immutable  distinction  of  right  and  wrong,  the  right¬ 
eousness  of  God  and  the  supremacy,  universality,  and  inviolable 
authority  of  his  law  of  love,  the  fear  of  punishment  may  touch 
and  awaken  the  moral  and  spiritual  capacities  of  the  sinner  and 
lead  him  to  repentance.  George  Eliot  says  :  “  His  mind  was 
destitute  of  that  dread  which  has  been  erroneously  decried  as 
if  it  were  nothing  higher  than  a  man’s  animal  care  for  his  own 
skin;  that  awe  of  the  divine  Nemesis  which  was  felt  by  religious 
pagans  and,  though  it  took  a  more  positive  form  under  Christian- 


1  Olymp.  ii.  str.  2 ;  i.  str.  2. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


50; 


ity,  is  still  felt  by  the  mass  of  mankind  simply  as  a  vague  fear  of 
anything  which  is  called  wrong-doing.  Such  terror  of  the  unseen 
is  so  far  above  mere  sensual  cowardice  that  it  will  annihilate  that 
cowardice.  It  is  the  initial  recognition  of  a  moral  law  restraining 
desires,  and  checks  the  hard  bold  scrutiny  of  imperfect  thought 
into  obligations  which  in  the  absence  of  feeling  can  never  be 
proved  to  have  any  sanctity.  It  is  good,  sing  the  old  Eumenides 
in  AEschylus,  that  fear  should  sit  as  the  guardian  of  the  soul 
forcing  it  into  wisdom,  —  good  that  men  should  carry  a  threaten¬ 
ing  shadow  in  their  hearts  under  the  full  sunshine  ;  else  how  will 
they  learn  to  reverence  the  right?  That  guardianship  may 
become  needless ;  but  only  when  all  outward  law  has  become 
needless,  only  when  duty  and  love  have  united  in  one  stream  and 
made  a  common  force.”  1  And  so  inseparable  is  this  connection 
of  punishment  with  the  consciousness  of  moral  obligation  and  of 
moral  law  that,  while  the  fear  of  the  divine  punishment  of  sinners 
in  the  future  life  awakens  the  moral  nature  from  slumber,  it  is 
also  true  that  the  sinner’s  conscience  and  all  his  moral  susceptibil¬ 
ities  when  aroused  awaken  the  expectation  of  punishment.  Les¬ 
lie  Stephen  says  :  “  Men  are  virtuous,  it  is  sometimes  said,  because 
they  believe  in  hell.  Is  not  this  an  inversion  of  the  proper  order 
of  thought?  Should  we  not  rather  say  that  men  believe  in  hell 

1  “  Romola,”  chap.  xi.  sub  finem.  A  few  days  before  I  wrote  this,  two 
gentlemen  in  Virginia,  having  a  private  quarrel,  met  at  the  post-office.  One 
was  armed  with  a  revolver,  the  other  with  a  knife.  They  fought,  and  each 
inflicted  mortal  wounds  on  the  other.  Even  newspapers  that  have  condemned 
the  act  have  spoken  of  the  “  splendid  courage  ”  of  the  combatants.  It  is 
more  probable  that  the  motive  which  actuated  them  was  moral  cowardice. 
Whatever  the  bull-dog  ferocity,  sometimes  mistaken  for  courage,  which 
they  displayed,  probably  the  motive  at  the  bottom  of  all  was  their  fear  to 
meet  the  public  sentiment  then  prevalent  about  them,  which,  if  they  had  not 
fought,  would  have  made  them  objects  of  sneers  because  they  did  not  dare 
to  revenge  an  insult.  A  judge  in  Kentucky  who  under  similar  circumstan¬ 
ces  killed  himself,  because  his  conscience  forbade  him  to  kill  a  man  who 
had  insulted  him  and  he  dared  not  face  the  sneers  of  his  neighbors,  showed 
a  similar  moral  cowardice.  If  the  fear  of  wrong-doing  and  of  God’s  judg¬ 
ment  on  it  had  been  in  the  hearts  of  those  men  and  had  deterred  them  from 
their  crimes,  they  would  have  shown  a  higher  courage  and  a  nobler  char¬ 
acter.  Character  is  what  a  person  is ;  reputation  is  what  others  think  him 
to  be.  To  sacrifice  character  for  reputation  is  moral  cowardice.  The 
duellist’s  sense  of  honor  is  a  cowardly  regard  to  the  opinions  of  other 
people.  The  assertion  of  the  honor  of  the  nation  ought  to  be  the  assertion 
of  justice  and  equity  in  all  national  acts.  It  often  is  the  pugnacious  asser¬ 
tion  of  superior  force,  —  a  bully’s  daring  of  another  bully  to  fight. 


508  the  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 


because  they  are  virtuous?  There  has  been  so  general  a  belief 
that  vice  is  degrading  and  is  to  be  discouraged  by  the  strongest 
possible  motives,  that  even  the  semi-barbarous  part  of  mankind 
have  exhausted  their  fancy  in  devising  most  elaborate  torments  to 
express  the  horror  with  which  they  regard  it.”  1 

It  must  also  be  noticed  that  from  the  nature  of  the  divine  pun¬ 
ishment,  as  I  have  unfolded  it,  the  fear  of  it  appeals  to  the  high¬ 
est  moral  and  spiritual  motives  as  well  as  to  the  susceptibility  of 
suffering.  The  penalties  for  sin  consist,  not  only  nor  primarily 
in  physical  privation  and  suffering,  but  much  more  in  alienation 
from  God,  the  depravation  of  the  soul,  conflict  with  one’s  self, 
antagonism  to  one’s  fellow-men,  to  the  moral  law,  and  to  the 
constitution  of  the  universe,  and  in  all  the  privation  and  misery 
necessarily  incidental  to  these.  Certainly  the  fear  of  these  spiri¬ 
tual  evils  desolating  the  soul  in  sin  cannot  be  debasing.  It  must 
join  with  the  awakening  sense  of  law,  duty,  and  guilt  in  rousing 
the  sinner  to  the  consciousness  of  his  relations  to  God,  of  the 
possibility  of  a  higher  life  and  blessedness,  of  nobler  ends  which 
he  has  missed,  of  sin  and  the  need  of  divine  grace,  and  so  may 
be  the  occasion  of  his  returning  to  God  in  penitential  trust.  And 
the  expectation  of  immortality  is  inseparable  from  the  conscious¬ 
ness  of  likeness  to  God,  of  communion  with  him,  and  of  working 
with  him  in  forwarding  the  designs  of  his  wisdom  and  love. 
When  a  person  is  once  awakened  to  this  consciousness  of  God, 
when  he  sees  the  divine  ideal  which  he  may  realize  in  himself, 
the  divine  plans  and  ends  in  accomplishing  which  he  may  be  a 
worker  together  with  God,  when  he  feels  the  aspirations  thus 
awakened,  he  sees  in  contrast  such  nothingness  in  a  life  shut  up 
in  the  sensual  and  vanishing  like  a  morning  vapor,  that  he  must 
expect  immortality.  Goethe  expressed  a  similar  thought.  He 
compared  the  soul,  in  its  great  powers  and  activity,  to  the  sun, 
using  the  words  of  one  of  the  ancients,  “  though  the  sun  goes 
down,  it  is  still  the  same  sun.”  And  he  proceeded  to  declare 
his  full  conviction  that  the  human  soul  is  indestructible,  and  at 
death,  like  the  setting  sun,  only  goes  down  from  our  sight  to 
shine  elsewhere.2  And  if  man  is  not  immortal,  God’s  moral  gov¬ 
ernment  is  incomplete  and  meaningless.  It  accomplishes  noth¬ 
ing  beyond  the  limits  of  an  earthly  and  sensual  life,  and  yet 

1  Free  Thinking  and  Plain  Speaking,  p.  105. 

2  Eckermann,  “  Conversations  with  Goethe,”  p.  108,  270. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


509 


awakens  in  men  by  virtue  of  their  constitution,  thoughts,  aspira¬ 
tions,  and  purposes  reaching  into  eternity.  As  Plutarch  says  in 
his  treatise  on  “ God’s  Delay  of  Punishment”  :  “  God  is  a  pursuer 
of  trifles  if  he  makes  so  much  of  creatures  in  whom  there  is  noth¬ 
ing  permanent  and  steadfast,  nothing  which  resembles  himself, 
but  who  are,  as  Homer  says,  only  the  withering  leaves  of  a  day. 
For  God  to  spend  his  care  on  creatures  such  as  these  would  be 
to  imitate  one  who  makes  a  garden  in  an  oyster  shell.”  The  be¬ 
lief  in  immortality  and  the  fear  of  future  punishment  would  be 
neither  inspiring  nor  ennobling,  if  immortality  signifies  only  the 
continuance  of  a  selfish  and  sensual  life,  if  forever 

“To-morrow,  and  to-morrow,  and  to-morrow 
Creep  in  this  petty  pace  from  day  to  day.” 

But  there  are  inspiration  and  quickening  to  the  highest  life  and 
the  noblest  ends  in  the  aspiration  to  live  forever  in  the  life  of 
love  in  the  likeness  of  God,  in  communion  with  him  and  working 
with  him  in  the  progressive  accomplishment  of  his  plan  of  perfect 
wisdom  and  love.  And  a  sinner’s  awakening  fear,  that  by  per¬ 
sisting  in  selfishness  and  sin  he  may  be  shut  up  to  that  life  of  sel¬ 
fishness  forever,  and  forever  miss  all  these  higher  possibilities  of 
his  being,  is  not  a  debasing  motive,  but  may  be  the  first  move¬ 
ment  of  his  soul  towards  appreciating  and  seeking  a  better  life. 

A  person  at  the  beginning  of  his  existence  is  without  moral 
character  or  moral  development.  At  the  outset  a  babe’s  moral 
constitution  is  awakened  to  action  by  requiring  or  prohibiting 
specific  acts  within  the  limited  sphere  of  infant  life.  Disapproval 
is  indicated  by  the  parent’s  frown  or  tone  or  attitude,  or  by  some 
privation  or  some  slight  infliction  of  pain ;  approval  is  indicated 
by  analogous  expressions  of  gratification.  When  once  the  idea 
of  right  and  wrong  has  arisen  in  the  child’s  mind,  and  his  moral 
and  spiritual  constitution  has  become  developed  into  action, 
motives  may  be  addressed  directly  to  these.  As  the  child  ad¬ 
vances  in  moral  and  spiritual  development,  these  higher  motives 
supersede  the  fear  of  punishment,  and  the  child  does  right  with¬ 
out  ever  thinking  of  chastisement  for  doing  wrong.  Analogous 
to  this  is  God’s  dealing  with  his  children.  In  the  infantile  stage 
of  human  society  the  fear  of  punishment  may  be  the  dominant 
motive  to  right  conduct ;  and  an  analogous  predominance  of  the 
fear  of  punishment,  and  that  even  by  physical  suffering,  may  be 


510  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


necessary  in  awakening  and  developing  the  moral  and  spiritual 
powers. 

The  same  may  be  necessary  in  dealing  with  those  who  have 
deadened  themselves  in  continued  sin.  This  gives  way  to  higher 
motives  as  the  uncultivated  man  is  developed,  and  as  the  man 
deadened  in  sin  repents  and  returns  to  God  and  afterwards  grows 
in  Christian  character  and  in  moral  and  spiritual  strength  and 
discernment. 

The  Bible  gives  much  more  prominence  to  the  moral  and 
spiritual  than  to  the  physical  evils  involved  in  punishment.  It 
gives  prominence  to  the  sinner’s  alienation  from  God  and  enmity 
against  him,  to  his  moral  impotence  for  good  which  he  has 
brought  on  himself,  to  his  death  in  trespasses  and  sin,  his  bond¬ 
age  in  sin,  his  carnal  or  fleshly  mind,  the  submergence  of  the 
spiritual  in  the  sensual,  the  rust  of  riches  eating  the  soul  as  fire, 
the  inward  conflict,  the  law  of  the  members  warring  against  the 
law  of  the  mind,  the  works  of  the  flesh  contrary  to  the  fruits  of 
the  spirit. 

The  physical  emblems  of  God’s  punishment  of  sinners  in  the 
Bible  are  to  a  great  extent  figurative,  as  symbols  of  spiritual  evil 
and  privation.  Physical  suffering,  however,  as  we  have  seen,  is 
not  excluded ;  it  is  recognized  in  the  Bible,  and  we  continually 
observe  it  as  a  fact  in  this  life.  In  former  times  it  has  been 
insisted  on  too  exclusively  and  presented  in  its  most  revolting 
forms.  Such  representations  may,  perhaps,  be  morally  useful  to 
savages.  Le  Jeune,  a  Jesuit  missionary  to  the  Indians  in  Canada, 
said  to  an  Algonquin  chief,  in  reference  to  their  custom  of  tortur¬ 
ing  prisoners  of  war  all  night  and  then  killing  them  :  “  You  do 
good  to  your  friends  and  you  burn  your  enemies.  God  does 
the  same.”  But  we  may  well  question  whether  this  representa¬ 
tion  of  God  helped  the  right  moral  development  even  of  so  brutal 
a  savage.  To  minds  cultivated  under  Christian  influences  such 
representations  give  false  ideas  of  God,  they  are  repulsive  and 
revolting,  they  may  repel  and  harden  sinners  rather  than  move 
them  to  repentance,  and  may  impart  coarseness  and  roughness 
of  character  even  to  Christians.  Mr.  Lecky  says  :  “  If  you  make 
the  detailed  and  exquisite  torments  of  multitudes  the  habi¬ 
tual  object  of  the  thoughts  and  imaginations  of  men,  you  will 
necessarily  produce  in  most  of  them  a  gradual  indifference  to 
human  suffering  and  in  some  of  them  a  disposition  to  regard  it 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


5 1 1 

with  delight.”  1  Such  was  the  influence  of  the  gladiatorial  con¬ 
flicts  in  the  amphitheatre  at  Rome;  Nero  exemplified  the  high¬ 
est  degree  of  the  barbarizing  influence,  watching  the  torments  of 
men  and  beasts  with  a  sort  of  aesthetic  delight.  Similar  are  now 
the  barbaric  spirit  and  barbarizing  influence  of  pugilistic  conflicts. 

It  must  be  said,  however,  of  many  of  those  preachers  and 
writers  whose  horrible  picturing  of  the  physical  torments  of  hell 
are  revolting  to  this  generation,  that  in  other  parts  of  their  writ¬ 
ings  are  passages  breathing  the  loftiest  moral  sentiments  and  the 
tenderness  of  Christian  love  to  sinners.  No  passage  has  been 
oftener  quoted  than  that  of  Tertullian  in  the  “  De  Spectaculis,” 
expressing  the  triumph  which  Christians  then  under  persecution 
will  feel  when  they  see  their  powerful  and  cruel  persecutors  con¬ 
demned  in  the  final  judgment  of  God.  But  this  same  Tertullian, 
replying  to  the  calumny  of  the  heathen  that  to  gain  heaven  the 
Christians  committed  the  most  horrible  crimes  in  their  assemblies 
for  worship,  declares  that  everlasting  blessedness  in  heaven  would 
not  be  worth  having  at  such  a  price.2 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  fear  of  the  divine  punishment 
of  sinners  is  a  legitimate  and  powerful  motive  to  induce  sinners  to 
turn  to  God,  and  also  to  strengthen  them  in  resisting  temptation 
in  their  education  and  development  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the 
Christian  life.  But  it  is  not  of  the  essence  of  Christian  character, 
and  in  the  Christian’s  growth  in  the  grace  and  the  knowledge  of 
Christ  it  is  superseded  by  love.  The  majority  of  persons  are  not 
influenced  in  the  least  by  the  fear  of  the  penalties  of  the  law  in 
refraining  from  theft,  murder,  and  other  crimes.  In  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  moral  character  they  have  entirely  transcended  this 
motive.  So  in  the  development  of  Christian  character  the  fear  of 
punishment  is  transcended  in  the  spontaneity  of  love. 

5.  Here  it  is  asked  why  the  reward  of  the  obedient  is  not 
included  in  the  sanction  of  the  law  as  well  as  the  punishment  of 
transgressors.  An  obvious  answer  is  :  When  the  command  of  the 
law  is  obeyed,  its  authority  is  acknowledged,  and  the  end  for 
which  it  was  given  is  attained.  Therefore  it  needs  no  further  action 
of  the  government  asserting,  maintaining,  and  vindicating  it.  It 
is  only  when  the  law  has  been  broken  and  thus  its  end,  as  to  the 
transgressor,  is  defeated,  that  the  government  needs  to  make  fur- 

1  “  History  of  Rationalism  in  Europe,”  vol.  i.  p.  326. 

2  De  Spectaculis,  chap.  30 ;  Apology,  chap.  3. 


512  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


ther  assertion  and  vindication  of  the  law ;  and  this  it  does  in  the 
punishment  of  the  law-breaker. 

Another  answer  is,  that  it  is  of  the  essence  of  law  that  it  declares 
the  authority  of  the  government  to  command  a,nd  the  imperative 
obligation  of  all  persons  to  obey.  Its  language  is  only  that  of  au¬ 
thoritative  command.  If  it  offered  a  specific  reward  for  a  specific 
act  of  obedience,  it  would  abandon  its  attitude  of  authority  as 
government  and  assume  the  attitude  of  making  a  bargain  with  an 
equal.  It  would  be  hiring  or  bribing  persons  to  obey  the  law. 
Thus,  instead  of  asserting,  maintaining,  and  vindicating  law,  the 
government  would  abandon  all  law  and  authority  in  their  dis¬ 
tinctive  significance.  A  mother  who  hires  her  child  to  obey  with 
sugar-plums  is  not  educating  it  to  obey  rightful  authority  and  law 
nor  to  conscientiousness  in  doing  right.  Similar  action  on  the 
part  of  the  government  would  annul  the  very  ideas  of  right,  obli¬ 
gation,  and  law.  This  is  attested  by  the  common  conscious¬ 
ness  of  men.  No  one  thinks  he  is  entitled  to  a  reward  for 
honestly  paying  his  debt  or  thinks  he  owes  his  neighbor  any  thanks 
for  not  cheating,  robbing,  or  murdering  him,  or  thinks  the  govern¬ 
ment  ought  to  reward  his  neighbor  for  not  committing  these 
crimes.  So  Christ  teaches,  in  the  parable  of  the  master  and  ser¬ 
vant,  that  duty  is  to  be  done  because  it  is  obligatory  as  duty  with¬ 
out  waiting  to  be  hired  to  do  it  by  the  promise  of  a  reward  (Luke 
xvii.  7-10). 

Human  laws  forbid  overt  acts  and  prescribe  a  specific  penalty 
for  each  act  of  transgression.  This  is  possible  because  the  specific 
acts  forbidden  are  comparatively  few  and  transgressions  are  com¬ 
paratively  rare  and  can  be  investigated  and  condemned.  But  a  good 
citizen  never  does  anything  forbidden  by  the  civil  law ;  every  act 
of  his  life  is  in  harmony  with  that  law.  The  immense  majority  of 
the  people  commit  no  crimes  by  violating  any  statute  enacted  by 
human  government.  It  would  be  impossible  for  the  government 
to  enact  laws  specifically  requiring  every  right  act  and  prescribing 
for  each  act  a  specific  reward.  But  human  government  protects 
all  in  their  lawful  pursuits  and  secures  to  them  their  rights.  This 
equal  protection  every  one  may  claim.  This  and  participation  in 
the  good  order,  peace,  and  prosperity  secured  by  good  government 
are  ordinarily  the  only  reward  of  obedience  to  human  law.  Other 
rewards  human  government  does  not  offer  except  in  rare  in¬ 
stances,  as  to  a  person  mentioned  by  name  for  extraordinary 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


513 


service  already  rendered,  or  as  it  offers  a  reward  for  some  service 
to  be  rendered,  as  the  detection  of  a  criminal.  These,  however, 
come  under  the  category  of  compensation  for  service  rendered 
or  to  be  rendered,  and  are  not  rewards  for  obeying  the  laws. 

The  law  of  God  differs  from  the  law  of  human  government  in 
that  it  is  not  confined  to  overt  acts^  but  requires  primarily  love  to 
God  and  man  as  the  inmost  character  and  as  the  vitalizing  energy 
of  all  right  action.  Hence  it  does  not  primarily  require  or  forbid 
specific  acts  and  declare  a  specific  penalty  for  each  specific  trans¬ 
gression.  It  requires  universal  love ;  and  the  penalty  for  trans¬ 
gression  is  privation  of  all  well-being.  Another  difference  between 
the  law  of  God  and  human  law  is  that  the  divine  punishment  is 
inflicted  through  the  constitution  of  the  sinner  himself  and  through 
the  constitution  of  the  universe,  as  we  have  seen.  Here,  as  in 
human  government,  the  sanction  of  the  law  in  its  strictest  mean¬ 
ing  is  limited  to  the  punishment  of  the  sinner,  because  so  far  as 
men  love  God  and  their  neighbors  the  authority  of  the  law  is  re¬ 
cognized  and  declared,  and  the  end  for  which  the  law  was  given 
is  attained.  Hence,  in  these  cases  there  is  no  occasion  for  a  spe¬ 
cific  additional  act  of  God  asserting  the  authority  and  immutability 
of  the  law. 

The  well-being,  which  comes  through  the  constitution  of  things 
on  those  who  live  in  conformity  with  God’s  law  of  love,  is  analo¬ 
gous  to  the  protection,  order,  and  peace  which  civil  government 
affords  to  those  who  obey  the  laws.  These  do  not  come  by  any 
special  enactment  as  a  prescribed  reward,  but  in  accordance  with 
the  constitution  of  human  society  under  government.  In  a  way 
analogous  with  this,  the  penalty  for  sin  against  God  comes  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  the  constitution  of  the  universe  physical  and  spiritual 
under  the  government  of  God.  In  writings  on  human  law  sanc¬ 
tion  is  used  to  denote  the  punishment  of  transgressors,  whereby 
the  authority  of  the  law  is  asserted,  vindicated,  and  maintained 
in  the  face  of  transgression.  Looking  beyond  this  technical  mean¬ 
ing  of  the  sanction  of  the  law,  we  may  truly  say  that  the  peace, 
order,  and  prosperity  which  result  from  the  obedience  of  the 
people  to  just  and  beneficent  human  law  is  itself  a  revelation  and 
vindication  of  the  rightful  authority  and  obligation  of  the  law.  So 
it  may  be  truly  said  that  the  perfection  and  well-being  which, 
through  the  constitution  of  man  and  of  the  universe,  come  on 
those  who  live  in  conformity  with  God’s  law  of  love  are  a  revela- 
vol.  11.  —  33 


5 14  THE  lord  of  all  in  moral  government 

tion  and  vindication  of  the  divine  government  and  law  as  of  right¬ 
ful  authority  and  imposing  immutable  and  universal  obligation  to 
obedience ;  for  in  this  perfection  and  well-being  the  end  of  the 
law  is  attained.  When  the  law  is  transgressed,  the  end  of  the  law 
is  not  attained,  aiid  God  asserts,  maintains,  and  vindicates  the  law 
by  the  punishment  of  the  transgressor. 

The  desire  of  reward,  like  the  fear  of  punishment,  may  be  a 
stimulus  to  awaken  the  moral  and  spiritual  susceptibilities  and 
may  help  in  the  education  and  discipline  developing  right  char¬ 
acter.  But  it  is  not  of  the  essence  of  right  character  and  can 
never  be  substituted  for  it.  In  fact  the  blessedness  which  is  the 
reward  of  the  righteous  is  primarily  the  blessedness  of  the  love  in 
which  the  right  character  consists.  No  one  can  enjoy  this  well¬ 
being  or  blessedness  until  he  finds  it  in  the  actual  exercise  of  the 
love.  Then  his  desire  for  the  reward  is  absorbed  and  lost  in  the 
love.  The  life  of  love  insures  the  highest  happiness.  But  if  a 
person’s  supreme  desire  is  for  his  own  happiness,  he  misses  the 
love,  and  the  perfection,  well-being,  and  happiness  which  the  love 
alone  makes  possible. 

6.  Here  arises  the  question  as  to  merit,  which  has  been  much 
discussed  in  theology.  The  sinner  deserves  or  merits  punishment. 
Does  one  who  obeys  the  law  deserve  or  merit  the  blessedness 
which  the  obedience  brings? 

It  has  been  held  that  a  person  merits  only  when  he  renders  a 
service  which  the  law  does  not  require ;  that  consequently  one 
merits  nothing  for  doing  his  duty.  Dr.  Robert  South  says  :  “  If 
that  which  is  due  may  also  merit,  then,  by  paying  what  1  owe,  I 
make  my  creditors  my  debtors ;  and  every  payment  would  not 
only  clear  but  also  transfer  the  debt.”  1  It  is  true,  as  we  have 
seen,  that  law  does  not  hire  or  bribe  by  offering  a  specific  reward 
for  every  act  of  obedience.  But  the  error  in  question  mistakes 
the  nature  of  the  reward.  The  payment  of  a  debt  gives  the 
debtor  no  right  to  demand  a  specific  reward  from  the  creditor. 
What  one  merits  for  paying  a  debt  is  exemption  from  the  cred¬ 
itor’s  just  claim  for  payment  and  from  all  the  liabilities  incident 
to  owing  the  debt.  What  one  merits  or  deserves  for  obeying  any 
human  law  is  not  a  reward  decreed  by  special  enactment,  but  it  is 
that  protection  by  the  government  and  that  well-being  in  the  dis¬ 
charge  of  obligations  which  are  accordant  with  the  constitution  of 

1  Sermons,  “  The  Doctrine  of  Merit  Stated,”  vol.  i.  p.  408. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


515 


the  person  and  of  the  government  and  so  are  due  to  him  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  law  and  justice.  The  error  in  question  also  errs  in 
carrying  the  analogy  of  human  government  with  the  divine  too 
far.  Under  human  government  it  is  possible  for  a  person  to  do 
acts  of  beneficence  which  the  civil  law  does  not  require.  Thus  we 
can  discriminate  between  a  gratuitous  service  which  the  law  does 
not  require  and  a  service  which  is  made  obligatory  by  the  law. 
But  no  such  discrimination  is  possible  as  to  obedience  to  God’s 
law.  It  requires  love  as  the  fundamental  character  to  be  mani¬ 
fested  in  every  action  and  toward  all  persons.  It  lays  its  demand 
for  the  service  of  love  on  all  one’s  powers,  possessions,  and  oppor¬ 
tunities,  according  to  the  law  of  greatness  for  service.  It  is  there¬ 
fore  impossible  for  any  person  to  do  any  act  of  love  more  or  other 
than  the  law  requires  and  makes  his  duty.  Because  love  is  required 
by  the  law  it  includes  both  benevolence  and  righteousness.  The 
two  are  inseparable  in  the  life  of  Christian  love.  The  exercise  of 
benevolence  in  specific  acts  must  be  regulated  by  righteousness  in 
accordance  with  law.  The  benevolent  person  must  see  to  it  that 
his  action  will  promote  that  which  the  law  determines  to  be  the 
only  true  well-being  and  by  acts  which  are  righteous,  doing  no 
injustice  to  himself  or  to  any  other  person.  We  are  not  permitted 
to  do  evil  that  good  may  come  (Rom.  iii.  8).  The  erroneous 
doctrine  of  merit  to  which  I  have  referred  implies  that  one  has 
merit  only  for  acts  of  supererogation,  that  is,  rendering  a  service 
of  love  more  than  the  law  requires.  But  under  God’s  law  of  uni¬ 
versal  love  such  acts  are  impossible.  Therefore,  instead  of  there 
being  no  merit  in  doing  duty,  there  can  be  no  merit  in  doing  any¬ 
thing  but  duty.  He  who  obeys*  the  law  merits,  —  that  is,  deserves, 
—  the  protection  of  the  government  and  all  the  well-being  which 
comes  from  obedience.  A  person  who  has  always  fully  obeyed 
the  law  of  love  deserves  or  merits  the  favor  of  God  and  all  the 
well-being  which  obedience  to  the  law  insures.  It  would  be  man¬ 
ifestly  unjust  to  punish  him ;  and  just  to  allow  to  him  the  well¬ 
being  which  obedience  in  the  life  of  love  brings.  A  person  has  a 
right  to  whatever  justice  awards  him  and  therefore  deserves  or 
merits  it.  And  righteousness  itself  is  one  aspect  of  the  love  which 
the  law  requires. 

When  a  person  has  sinned  he  certainly  does  not  deserve  or 
merit  the  graciousness  with  which  God  seeks  him  to  draw  him 
away  from  sin.  God’s  grace  as  we  have  seen,  is  not  called  forth 


5 16  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


by  any  right  act  or  any  merit  of  the  sinner,  but  is  self-moved,  free, 
and  sovereign. 

When,  under  the  gracious  and  renewing  influences  and  agencies 
of  God’s  redeeming  love,  a  sinner  has  returned  to  God  in  peni¬ 
tential  trust  and  is  accepted  and  forgiven,  this  is  clearly  grace  to 
the  undeserving ;  it  will  remain  forever  historically  true  that  this 
person  had  been  a  guilty  undeserving  sinner  saved  by  God’s  free 
grace.  But  as  this  renewed  person  goes  on  obeying  God’s  law  of 
love,  he  may  properly  be  said  to  deserve  or  merit  the  approval 
ol  God  and  all  the  blessings  consequent  on  his  continuous  right 
action. 

This  enables  us  to  answer  some  of  the  questions  respecting 
human  merit  by  which  theologians  have  been  perplexed.  Sinners 
have  no  claim  to  God’s  mercy  on  the  ground  of  their  own  merits. 
They  deserve  punishment,  not  mercy.  Yet  God  owes  it  to  him¬ 
self  as  God,  he  owes  it  to  his  law  of  love  as  the  supreme,  inviol¬ 
able,  immutable  law  of  eternal  Reason,  that  he  should  seek  these 
sinners  to  redeem  them  from  their  sin,  and  draw  them  back  to 
allegiance  to  the  law  and  to  union  with  himself  in  the  life  of  love. 
Thus  God’s  action  in  the  redemption  of  sinners  is  the  manifes¬ 
tation  both  of  his  righteousness  and  of  his  benevolence.  So 
Clement  of  Alexandria  teaches,  that  God  is  just  in  his  benevo¬ 
lence  and  benevolent  in  his  justice.1  He  exercises  good-will  or 
benevolence  in  full  measure  towards  all  rational  persons.  He 
exhausts  on  them  all  the  resources  of  wisdom  and  love  to  draw 
them  to  himself.  If  they  resist  and  remain  in  sin,  it  is  not  be¬ 
cause  he  has  arbitrarily  stinted  his  good-will,  but  because,  con¬ 
forming  all  his  action  with  the  eternal  principles  and  laws  of 
Reason  and  progressively  realizing  its  wise,  righteous,  and  benev¬ 
olent  ends,  he  cannot  do  more  or  otherwise  than  he  does  consis¬ 
tently  with  his  perfect  wisdom  and  righteousness.  From  this 
point  of  view  it  is  evident  that  all  God’s  action  in  the  redemp¬ 
tion  of  men  from  sin  has  atoning  significance.  He  always  so 
acts  as  to  magnify  the  law  and  make  it  honorable.  It  is  always 
the  High  and  Holy  One  coming  down  to  the  low  and  sinful  to 
lift  them  up,  thus  himself  obeying  the  law  of  love,  reclaiming  men 
to  conformity  with  it,  and  so  asserting,  maintaining,  and  vindicat¬ 
ing  its  authority.  It  follows  that  even  a  sinner  seeking  mercy 
may  be  said  to  have  a  certain  claim  on  God,  a  certain  right  to  his 

1  Paidagogos,  Bk.  I.  chap.  viii. 


THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  LAW 


517 


compassion,  not  founded  on  any  merit  of  his  own,  but  on  the 
eternal  fulness  of  God’s  good-will  as  regulated  in  righteousness. 
The  sinner’s  claim  is  not  because  he  himself  is  good,  but  because 
God  is  good.  “  Have  mercy  upon  me,  O  God,  according  to  thy 
loving-kindness ;  according  to  the  multitude  of  thy  tender  mer¬ 
cies  blot  out  my  transgressions”  (Psalm  li.  1).  This  is  the 
significance  of  the  prayer  for  mercy  for  Christ’s  sake  or  in 
Christ’s  name.  It  is  in  him  that  God  has  made  the  highest 
revelation  of  his  good-will  in  righteousness,  of  his  law,  and 
of  his  love  in  obedience  to  the  law.  This  gives  the  sinner  a 
right  to  trust  him  and  a  claim  to  plead  before  him.  In  Christ, 
God  declares  his  righteousness  in  the  redemption  of  sinners  and 
the  justification  of  those  who  yield  to  his  redeeming  grace ;  in 
him  he  is  just  and  the  justifier  of  him  who  hath  faith  in  Christ 
(Rom.  iii.  25,  26). 

Here  we  see  the  real  significance  of  the  old  distinction  of 
the  merit  of  condignity  ( me ri turn  de  condigno )  and  the  merit  of 
congruity  ( meritum  de  congruo).  A  sinner  has  no  merit  of  con- 
dignity,  for  this  belongs  only  to  one  who  has  always  freely  and 
perfectly  obeyed  the  law  of  love.  But  a  sinner  may  have  the  merit 
of  congruity ;  that  is,  God  sees  it  congruous  with  his  own  perfec¬ 
tion  and  with  his  righteousness  in  conformity  with  his  law  of  love, 
that,  in  his  compassion  and  good-will,  he  should  seek  sinners  in 
the  way  of  redemption,  to  draw  them  back  to  union  and  com¬ 
munion  with  himself  in  the  life  of  love.  It  is  not  the  sinner’s 
merit  in  himself,  but  his  claim  for  mercy  on  God  as  he  has 
revealed  the  indissoluble  union  of  his  righteousness  and  good-will 
in  Christ. 

In  conclusion,  we  see  that  the  conception  of  the  nature  of  the 
punishment  of  sinners,  as  it  has  been  explained,  enables  us  to  see 
the  real  and  awful  significance  of  the  tremendous  scriptural 
representations  of  the  character  and  destiny  of  sinners.  The 
scriptures  use  the  strongest  terms  and  the  most  terrific  imagery 
in  declaring  God’s  condemnation  and  abhorrence  of  sinners. 
They  even  represent  him  anthropomorphically  as  looking  on  them 
with  contempt  in  their  opposition  to  his  law  and  his  grace  and  to 
the  progress  of  his  kingdom  :  “  He  who  sitteth  in  the  heavens 
shall  laugh ;  Jehovah  shall  have  them  in  derision  ”  (Psalm  ii.  4). 
These  scriptural  representations  express  the  real  character  of  sin, 
its  enormity  and  hatefulness  as  God  sees  it ;  and  the  horribleness 


5  1 8  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


of  the  ruin  which  it  brings  on  the  sinner.  No  words  are  adequate 
to  express  the  actual  reality  of  the  sinfulness  of  sin  and  the  de¬ 
basement  and  ruin  of  the  sinner.  The  punishment  of  sin  discloses 
what  God  sees  that  sinners  really  deserve,  the  woe  which  they 
bring  on  themselves,  “  vessels  of  wrath  fitted  for  destruction  ” 
(Rom.  ix.  22).  And  no  one  is  consigned  to  this  hopeless  woe  who 
is  fitted  or  can  be  fitted  for  anything  better.  The  more  perfect 
in  love  a  person’s  character  is,  the  clearer  is  his  conception  of 
the  wickedness  of  sin  and  the  monstrosity  and  ill-desert  of  the 
sinner,  and  the  more  intense  his  abhorrence  and  repugnance. 
God’s  estimate  of  the  wickedness  and  ill-desert  and  his  repug¬ 
nance  and  abhorrence  surpass  that  of  the  holiest  man  as  much 
as  God  surpasses  man.  The  tremendousness  of  the  evil  of  sin 
is  also  revealed  in  the  coming  of  God  in  Ghrist  to  save  men  from 
it  and  its  consequences.  How  great  the  evil  that  called  forth  so 
wondrous  a  divine  work  of  redemption  !  And  this  exceeding  sin¬ 
fulness  of  sin  was  one  element  in  the  anguish  of  Christ  in  Geth- 
semane  and  in  his  whole  life  as  the  man  of  sorrows.  He  bore 
the  sins  of  men,  he  saw  the  unworthiness  and  hatefulness  and 
ruinousness  of  the  sinful  character.  He  saw  it  the  more  clearly 
and  suffered  the  more  intensely  because,  when  in  godlike  com¬ 
passion  he  had  come  in  humiliation  to  save  them,  they  only 
rejected,  persecuted,  and  finally  would  crucify  him  who  had 
come  to  save  them. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 


THE  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT 

I.  The  Primary  Ground  or  Origin  of  the  Authority  of  Law 
and  Government. —  i.  Human  government  is  a  divine  institu¬ 
tion  deriving  its  authority  from  God. 

This  is  a  legitimate  and  necessary  demand  of  human  reason. 
All  universal  principles  and  laws  imperatively  regulating  human 
thought  and  action  are  principles  and  laws  of  reason.  Every 
person  knows  that  a  rational  being  ought  to  act  reasonably ;  that 
is,  that  what  is  true  to  reason  is  law  to  thought  and  action. 
Thus  he  recognizes  himself  as  under  law  in  virtue  of  his  ration¬ 
ality  and  freedom.  In  thus  recognizing  reason  as  the  source  of 
principles  and  laws  regulating  thought  and  action,  the  recognition 
of  it  as  of  supreme  and  universal  authority  is  implied.  If  they 
are  laws  to  our  thinking  and  acting  and  thus  give  us  valid 
knowledge,  they  must  be  laws  to  thinking  and  acting  throughout 
the  universe.  Science  discovers  that  they  are  so.  Then  they 
must  be  principles  and  laws  eternal  in  the  absolute  Reason, 
enlightening  and  regulating  the  power  which  manifests  itself  in 
the  constitution  and  evolution  of  the  universe.  That  Power  ener¬ 
gizing  in  the  light  of  eternal  Reason  and  in  accordance  with  its 
principles  and  laws  is  God.  In  him,  the  absolute  Reason,  is  the 
primary  source  of  all  authority  and  law.  We  have  seen  already 
that  the  existence  of  the  absolute  Reason,  regulating  by  its  eternal 
principles  and  laws  the  power  that  manifests  itself  in  the  consti¬ 
tution  and  evolution  of  the  universe,  is  necessarily  postulated  as 
the  basis  of  the  validity  of  all  empirical  science,  of  all  ethics  and 
aesthetics,  of  all  philosophy  seeking  to  know  the  rationale  of 
things  and  facts,  of  all  religion,  and,  in  fact,  of  the  validity  and 
reality  of  all  human  knowledge.  All  rest  on  the  fact  that  Reason 


520  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


is  absolute,  eternal,  and  immutable,  and  that  man  as  rational  in 
the  light  of  his  own  reason  sees  principles,  laws,  and  ideals  that 
are  eternal  in  the  absolute  Reason.  In  the  same  line  of  thought 
we  see  that  all  authority  to  proclaim  and  enforce  laws  that  are 
to  regulate  human  thought  and  action  must  rest  ultimately  on  the 
same  absolute  Reason.  Civil  polity,  jurisprudence,  sociology, 
like  all  science  and  philosophy,  rest  on  the  fundamental  postulate 
that  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  exists  and  has  constituted  and  is 
evolving  the  universe  in  accordance  with  immutable  principles 
and  laws  of  reason,  the  same  in  its  essential  principles  with  our 
own.  All  authority  and  law  have  their  ultimate  source  and 
warrant  in  reason.  Therefore  all  civil  law  and  government  derive 
their  authority  from  God,  the  absolute  Reason,  in  whom  all  prin¬ 
ciples,  laws,  and  ideals  of  reason  are  eternal  and  immutable,  and 
who  himself  in  all  his  action  acts  in  conformity  with  and  obedi¬ 
ence  to  those  principles  and  laws. 

In  accordance  with  this  legitimate  and  necessary  demand  of 
reason,  it  is  revealed  in  the  revelation  of  God  recorded  in  the 
Bible  that  human  government  is  a  divine  institution  deiiving  its 
authority  from  God.  “  Let  every  soul  be  in  subjection  to  the 
higher  authorities  (e^ovcriais)  ;  for  there  is  no  authority  except 
from  God ;  and  the  existing  authorities  are  ordained  of  God. 
Therefore  he  who  resisteth  the  authority,  resisteth  the  ordinance 
of  God.  .  .  .  Rulers  are  not  a  terror  to  good  works,  but  to 
the  evil.  .  .  .  He  is  a  minister  of  God  to  thee  for  good.  .  .  . 
For  this  cause  ye  pay  tribute  also  ;  for  they  are  God’s  ministers, 
attending  continually  upon  this  very  thing.  Render  to  all  their 
dues”  (Rom.  xiii.  1-7). 

Jesus  said  and  did  nothing  to  encourage  insurrection  against 
the  Roman  government.  On  the  contrary,  throughout  his  public 
ministry  he  was  correcting  the  erroneous  expectation  of  the  Jews 
that  the  Messiah  would  use  his  miraculous  powers  to  subdue  the 
Gentile  nations  and  establish  the  supremacy  of  Israel,  and  himself 
would  reign  in  person  at  Jerusalem  over  the  conquered  nations. 
During  the  forty  days  in  the  wilderness,  before  entering  on  his 
public  ministry,  he  was  considering  this  very  question.  He  was 
tempted  to  accept  the  Jewish  conception  of  his  messianic  work, 
and  thus  to  insure  at  once  their  acknowledgment  of  him  as  the 
Messiah,  and  their  co-operation  in  establishing  his  kingdom, 
instead  of  their  deadly  enmity.  But  he  would  not  listen  to  the 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  52 1 

suggestion,  though  by  consenting  to  it  he  should  attain  all  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory  of  them.  Afterwards,  when 
Pharisees  and  Herodians  combined  to  entangle  him  in  seditious 
utterances,  he  said,  “  Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are 
Caesar’s ;  and  unto  God  the  things  that  are  God’s.”  When 
arrested  and  condemned  to  death,  he  did  not  use  his  super¬ 
natural  powers  to  save  himself  from  the  unjust  infliction,  not 
even  when  they  said,  taunting  him,  “  If  he  be  the  King  of 
Israel,  let  him  now  come  down  from  the  cross  and  we  will 
believe  on  him.” 

In  the  history  of  Israel  recorded  in  the  Old  Testament,  the 
government  of  Israel  was  a  theocracy.  The  judge  or  king  was 
supposed  to  administer  the  government  as  the  vicegerent  of 
Jehovah,  the  real  king.  When  Saul  refused  to  recognize  this  con¬ 
ception  of  himself  as  king,  he  was  rejected.  David  was  chosen 
in  his  stead,  as  in  this  respect  a  man  after  God’s  own  heart  ( 1  Sam. 
xiii.  13,  14).  Throughout  the  history  of  Israel,  the  prophets  do 
not  hesitate  to  rebuke  the  king  and  rulers,  and  to  denounce  judg¬ 
ments  on  them  for  not  rendering  due  allegiance  to  Jehovah.  It 
was  a  recognition,  in  a  form  adapted  to  the  people  and  the  time, 
of  the  fundamental  basis  of  all  government.  No  one  has  authority 
to  give  law  to  any  rational  person  and  to  enforce  obedience  by 
penalty,  unless  that  authority  is  grounded  in  and  demanded  by 
perfect  reason,  and  so  is  derived  ultimately  from  God  the  abso¬ 
lute  Reason.  Accordingly,  we  find  that  the  government  of  Israel 
respected  the  rights  of  the  people  and  sought  to  make  just  laws 
more  than  the  governments  of  the  ancient  idolatrous  nations. 
In  the  government  of  Greece  and  Rome  the  conception  was  of  a 
city  which  ruled  over  the  surrounding  territory.  None  had  the 
rights  of  citizens  except  the  freemen  of  the  ruling  city  ;  and  these 
were  a  minority  of  the  population,  the  rest  being  slaves  or  persons 
not  admitted  to  the  rights  of  citizenship.  Even  after  Rome  had 
subdued  the  whole  civilized  western  world,  the  theory  was  still 
maintained  that  only  citizens  of  Rome  had  the  rights  and  privi¬ 
leges  of  citizenship.  On  the  contrary,  the  people  of  Israel, 
divided  into  tribes  and  dwelling  all  over  their  country,  had  equal 
rights  under  the  government.  The  history  throughout  discloses 
a  high  importance  attached  to  laws  just,  equitable,  and  approved 
by  God  as  the  only  basis  of  national  prosperity.  There  is  truth  in 
Milton’s  lines  :  — 


522  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

As  men  divinely  taught  and  better  teaching 
The  solid  rules  of  civil  government, 

In  their  majestic  unaffected  style, 

Than  all  the  oratory  of  Greece  and  Rome. 

In  them  is  plainest  taught  and  easiest  learned 
What  makes  a  nation  happy  and  keeps  it  so, 

What  ruins  kingdoms  and  lays  cities  flat. 

Paradise  Regained ,  Bk.  iv. 

A  third  consideration  confirming  this  view  is  the  conclusion 
to  which  authors  have  come  who  are  accepted  as  authorities  in  the 
science  of  religion,  in  anthropology,  and  the  philosophy  of  his¬ 
tory,  —  that  religion  has  been  a  dominant  force  in  affecting  and 
preserving  the  union  of  peoples  in  nations  and  states.  Professor 
Max  Muller  says  :  “  What  makes  a  people  ?  How  did  men  form 
themselves  into  a  people  before  there  were  kings  or  shepherds  of 
men?  Was  it  through  community  of  blood?  I  doubt  it.  Com¬ 
munity  of  blood  produces  families,  clans,  possibly  races,  but  it 
does  not  produce  that  higher  and  purely  moral  feeling  which 
binds  men  together  and  makes  them  a  people.  It  is  language 
and  religion  that  make  a  people  ;  but  religion  is  even  a  more 
powerful  agent  than  language.”  1  He  quotes  with  approval  Schel- 
ling  as  saying,  “  A  people  exists  only  when  it  has  determined  itself 
with  regard  to  its  mythology.  This  mythology,  therefore,  cannot 
take  its  origin  after  a  national  separation  has  taken  place  ;  its 
origin  must  be  referred  to  the  period  of  transition,  when  the 
people  is  in  the  process  of  separating  and  constituting  itself.” 
Hegel  says,  in  his  “  Philosophy  of  History,”  “  The  idea  of  God 
constitutes  the  general  foundation  of  a  people.  .  .  .  The  state  rests 
on  religion.  ...  In  affirming  that  the  state  is  based  on  religion, 
that  it  has  its  roots  in  it,  we  virtually  assert  that  the  former  has 
proceeded  from  the  latter,  and  that  this  derivation  is  going  on 
now  and  will  always  continue  ;  i.  e.,  the  principles  of  the  state 
must  be  regarded  as  valid  in  and  for  themselves,  which  can  only 
be  in  so  far  as  they  are  recognized  as  determinate  manifestations 
of  the  divine  nature.  The  form  of  religion,  therefore,  decides 
that  of  the  state  and  its  constitution.”  2  Not  only  has  philosophy 
compelled  the  conclusion  that  the  only  reasonable  conception  of 
civil  government  is  that  it  has  its  origin  in  the  divine,  and  derives 

1  The  Science  of  Religion,  Lect.  iii. 

2  “  Philosophy  of  History,”  Sibree’s  Trans.,  Bohn’s  ed.,  Introduction,  pp. 
52,  53- 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  523 


its  authority  from  God,  but  historical  investigation  shows  that 
this  conclusion  has  been  widely  recognized  more  or  less  clearly 
in  fact.  Mr.  Maine  says,  “  In  early  law  and  amid  the  rudi¬ 
ments  of  political  thought,  symptoms  of  this  belief  meet  us  on 
all  sides.  A  supernatural  presidency  is  supposed  to  consecrate 
and  keep  together  all  the  cardinal  institutions  of  those  times, 
the  State,  the  Race,  and  the  Family.”  1  To  this  must  be  added 
that,  from  the  earliest  times  when  a  code  of  laws  was  issued 
as  distinguished  from  the  isolated  and  arbitrary  commands 
of  a  despot,  these  laws  have  been  recognized  as  coming  down 
from  God.  Plato,  speaking  of  the  punishment  of  criminals 
after  death,  savs  that  the  laws  of  the  state  deliver  them  for 
punishment  to  their  sisters,  the  laws  of  God.  Similar  was  the 
common  belief.  Diodorus  Siculus  says,  “  The  Egyptians  be¬ 
lieved  their  laws  had  been  communicated  to  Mnevis  by  Hermes ; 
the  Cretans  held  that  Minos  received  his  laws  from  Zeus ;  the 
Lacedaemonians,  that  Lycurgus  received  his  laws  from  Apollon. 
According  to  the  Aryans,  their  lawgiver,  Zathraustes,  had  re¬ 
ceived  his  laws  from  the  Good  Spirit ;  according  to  the  Getae, 
Zamolxis  received  his  laws  from  the  goddess  Hestia ;  and 
according  to  the  Jews,  Moses  received  his  laws  from  the  God 
Iao  ”  (L.  i.  c.  94) . 

The  divine  origin  of  the  authority  of  human  law  and  government 
is  tacitly  acknowledged  in  the  universal  belief  that  human  gov¬ 
ernment  ought  to  enact  just  laws  and  to  adjudicate  and  execute 
them  justly.  This  is  the  teaching  of  jurists  and  writers  on  juris¬ 
prudence,  and  is  generally  accepted  by  the  people  as  an  indis¬ 
putable  maxim.  This  belief  necessarily  implies  a  higher  law 
above  human  law,  and  an  authority  above  that  of  human  govern¬ 
ment,  to  which  human  government  itself  is  under  obligation  to 
conform  its  enactments  and  administration.  This  is  the  moral 
law  of  God,  the  eternal  principles  of  reason,  and  the  laws  of  right 
and  wrong,  in  the  light  of  which  and  in  conformity  with  which  the 
government,  in  the  use  of  its  best  wisdom,  is  to  determine  what 
specific  enactments  and  what  administrative  action  will  best  sub¬ 
serve  the  true  practical  application  of  these  rational  and  moral 
principles  and  laws.  Evidently  no  human  government  by  its 
enactments  ever  originated  the  fundamental  principles  and  laws 
of  reason,  regulative  of  all  human  thought  and  action,  and 

1  “  Ancient  Law,”  Scribner’s  ed.,  p.  6. 


524  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


including  the  eternal  and  unchanging  principles  of  the  moral 
law.1 

2.  The  authority  to  govern  the  people  is  given  by  God  to  the 
people.  Man,  by  his  very  constitution,  is  in  union  with  men  in 
society.  He  is  in  union  with  society  by  birth  and  race -connection. 
Men  are  also  constituted  for  human  society  in  virtue  of  their  com¬ 
mon  constitution  as  rational,  self-determining  persons  subject  to 
the  same  universal  principles  of  reason,  and  the  same  universal 
moral  law  requiring  good-will  regulated  by  righteousness  in  uni¬ 
versal  love.  Men,  therefore,  are  constituted  both  physically  and 
spiritually  for  union  in  society,  and  without  it  the  individual  man 
and  human  society  itself  would  be  an  abortion.  Accordingly, 
Aristotle  said  that  man  is  born  a  member  of  a  state  (7 toXltlkos). 
Judge  McLean  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  recognized 
the  same  unity  of  the  people  on  their  higher  rational  and  personal 
side,  when  he  said  in  one  of  his  judicial  decisions,  that  the  public 
law  is  the  expression  of  “  the  collective  reason  of  the  peopled’ 
The  people  consist  of  rational  free  agents  self-determining  and 
self-governing.  Therefore  the  people  collectively  are  a  rational, 
self-governing  people. 

Thus  constituted,  society  or  the  community  of  men  must  have 
authority  over  the  individual  to  prescribe  the  practical  application 
of  the  supreme  and  universal  moral  law  necessary  to  the  well¬ 
being  of  the  community.  The  exercise  of  this  authority  is  essen¬ 
tial  to  the  existence  and  normal  development  of  human  society 
and  of  the  individual  man  in  it.  The  authority  cannot  be  vested 
in  every  person,  for  that  would  issue  in  moral  and  political  chaos, 
and  the  normal  development  alike  of  the  individual  and  of  society 

1  In  the  time  of  the  anti-slavery  movement,  Mr.  Seward,  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  appealed  to  a  law  higher  than  human  enactment.  It  caused 
a  great  excitement.  Many  insisted  that  there  is  no  higher  law,  and  some 
even  intimated  that  it  was  treasonable  to  assert  it.  After  a  while  this  ex¬ 
citement  died  away,  and  the  people  generally  returned  to  their  usual  sane 
belief  that  there  is  a  higher  law  which  human  governments  are  bound  to 
obey,  the  universal  moral  law  which  comes  from  God  and  never  was  origi¬ 
nated  by  any  human  government,  and  which  requires  the  government  to 
enact  just  laws  and  to  administer  the  government  justly,  having  due  regard 
to  the  rights  of  the  individual  and  the  well-being  of  society.  A  leading 
newspaper,  which  at  first  joined  in  the  outcry  against  the  Senator,  after¬ 
wards  declared  that  it  had  never  denied  the  reality  of  the  higher  law  to 
which  human  governments  are  bound  to  conform  their  enactments  and 
administration. 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  525 


would  be  impossible.  It  cannot  be  vested  in  any  particular  indi¬ 
vidual,  unless  appointed  by  consent  of  the  people,  because  there 
is  no  basis  in  reason  nor  in  the  constitution  of  man  determining 
why,  apart  from  the  consent  of  the  people,  any  one  should  have 
authority  to  rule  over  all  the  others. 

But  it  must  be  remembered  that,  while  the  people  have  author¬ 
ity  and  the  right  to  rule,  that  authority  does  not  originate  with 
them,  but  comes  from  God  the  eternal  and  absolute  Reason  to 
men  endowed  with  reason  in  the  likeness  of  God’s  reason,  and  so 
capable  of  self-government.  This  authority,  therefore,  is  given 
them  in  the  very  act  of  giving  them  being  in  the  likeness  of  him¬ 
self,  the  eternal  Reason.  Men  are  endowed  with  reason  in  the 
likeness  of  the  divine  Reason,  and  thus  participate  in  the  light  of 
the  divine  Reason,  that  is  the  source  of  all  rightful  authority  and 
sovereignty.  Reason  always  speaks  with  authority,  demanding 
the  assent  of  the  intellect,  “  This  must  be  true,”  and  requiring 
the  consent  and  obedience  of  the  will,  “  This  ought  to  be  done.” 
Every  man,  therefore,  is  capable  of  self-determination  and  self- 
government  in  the  light  of  reason.  Every  community  of  men,  for 
the  same  reason,  is  capable  of  self-government.  Since  the  individ¬ 
ual  must  exist  in  society  and  society  must  be  composed  of 
individuals,  there  are  two  ever  present  factors  which  must  adjust 
themselves  to  each  other.  The  people  or  community  must  de¬ 
termine  and  require  what  is  right  for  the  community  and  promo¬ 
tive  of  its  true  development  and  well-being,  but  with  strict  regard 
to  the  rights  of  the  individual.  The  individual  in  the  light  of 
reason  and  conscience  must  determine,  what  is  right  for  him  and 
promotive  of  his  true  well-being,  but  with  strict  regard  to  the 
authority  and  rights  of  the  community.  Both  the  community 
and  the  individual  are  bound  to  act  in  accordance  with  the 
supreme  and  universal  moral  law,  which  requires  universal  good¬ 
will  exercised  in  righteousness,  that  is,  in  accordance  with  the 
eternal  truths  and  laws  of  reason  and  for  the  progressive  realiza¬ 
tion  of  its  ideals  of  perfection  and  well-being. 

Therefore  the  ultimate  source  of  authority  is  in  Reason.  It 
is  not  in  principles  and  laws  considered  merely  as  speculative 
and  abstract  thought,  but  as  constituent  elements  of  reason  in 
man  and  God  and  guiding  them  in  the  exercise  of  their  ener¬ 
gies.  They  are  not  principles,  laws,  and  ideals  in  human  reason 
alone,  but  also  in  God  the  absolute  and  eternal  Reason.  In 


526  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


him  these  principles,  laws,  and  ideals  are  eternal  and  immu¬ 
table  ;  in  accordance  with  them  he  has  constituted  the  universe 
and  is  evolving  it  in  the  progressive  realization  of  his  eternal  and 
archetypal  ideal.  Thus  in  absolute  Reason  is  the  eternal  and 
immutable  source  of  all  authority.  This  is  the  great  truth  which 
dawned  on  the  psalmist  when  he  said,  “Forever,  O  Lord,  thy 
word  is  settled  in  heaven”  (Ps.  cxix.  89). 

Here  we  see  that  there  is  no  place  in  the  universe  from  its 
foundation  to  its  capstone  for  any  rightful  authority  or  sovereignty 
resting  on  arbitrary  and  resistless  will-power. 

3.  The  people  must  be  organized  in  a  state  or  political  com¬ 
munity  in  which  the  government  is  administered  by  persons 
appointed  by  the  people,  or  at  least  with  the  consent  of  the  peo¬ 
ple,  who  enact,  adjudicate,  and  execute  the  laws.  This  is  nec¬ 
essary  from  the  nature  of  the  case.  Only  in  a  very  small  com¬ 
munity  can  the  people  meet  en  masse  as  in  a  town-meeting.  And 
even  a  small  community,  as  a  town  or  school  district,  must  com¬ 
mit  the  administration  of  the  government  in  its  details  to  persons 
appointed  to  attend  to  the  various  lines  of  public  business.  The 
attempt  to  govern  a  city  of  one  hundred  thousand  or  five  hun¬ 
dred  thousand  inhabitants  by  vote  of  the  people  assembled  in  a 
town-meeting  is  impracticable  and  absurd,  and,  instead  of  secur¬ 
ing  the  rights  of  the  people  and  their  self-government,  opens  the 
way  for  all  manner  of  selfish  scheming  and  political  corruption, 
sacrificing  the  rights  of  the  many  to  the  selfish  scheming  of  a  few. 
Government  directly  by  the  people  in  a  nation  like  the  United 
States,  consisting  of  many  millions  of  people  and  occupying  a 
continent,  is  of  course  impossible.  Government  by  the  people  is 
possible  only  through  their  representatives.  Persons  must  be 
appointed  by  the  people  to  represent  them  in  the  enactment, 
adjudication,  and  enforcement  of  laws  and  the  administration  of 
the  government.  The  organization  of  the  people  under  govern¬ 
ment  in  a  state  or  political  community  is  necessary  also  because 
man  is  by  his  very  constitution  an  organizer.  His  constitution, 
physical,  rational,  moral,  political,  makes  it  impossible  for  him  to 
live  and  attain  his  normal  development  otherwise  than  in  society. 
A  multitude  of  persons  together  is  a  mere  crowd.  It  cannot 
voice  its  own  will  or  purpose  without  some  organization  of  itself 
through  which  to  declare  it. 

The  government  as  thus  organized  must  be  distinguished  from 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  52 7 

the  people.  The  authority  to  govern  comes  from  God  primarily 
to  the  people.  The  persons  appointed  to  administer  the  govern¬ 
ment  derive  their  authority  from  the  people,  and  from  God  only 
through  the  people  and  as  authorized  by  them  to  govern.*  This 
authority  reverts  to  the  people  at  stated  intervals  in  election ; 
and  the  organized  government  can  at  any  time  ascertain  the 
mind  of  the  people  on  any  specific  subject  through  the  refer¬ 
endum.  Therefore  we  may  properly  say  of  the  government  thus 
organized,  that  it  derives  its  authority  from  the  people ;  it  is 
“  from  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people.”  Its  aim  is  to 
declare  “  the  collective  reason  of  the  people,”  so  far  as  that 
accords  with  the  truths,  laws,  and  ideals  eternal  in  the  absolute 
Reason  of  God.  It  is  intended  to  be  the  impersonated  reason  of 
the  people. 

There  are  three  divine  institutions,  the  family,  the  state  and  the 
church.  Each  is  essential  to  the  normal  development  of  man 
and  must  exist  so  long  as  human  society  exists  and  makes 
progress. 

Of  these  three  the  family  is  closest  to  the  race-connection. 
Rut  even  this  is  less  primitive,  less  exclusively  dependent  on  the 
race-connection  than  has  commonly  been  supposed.  Anthropolo¬ 
gists  have  discovered  that  the  family  in  its  distinctive  significance 
did  not  exist  among  primitive  men;  they  find  polyandria,  the 
family  determined,  if  at  all,  from  the  mother ;  they  find  tribal 
marriage ;  they  find  polygamy.  The  development  of  the  mono¬ 
gamous  family  came  only  with  much  larger  intellectual,  moral, 
and  religious  development. 

It  is  unnecessary  for  our  present  purpose  to  ascertain  how  the 
larger  political  unity  of  states  and  nations  was  developed.  While 
we  recognize  their  normal  development  through  the  influence  of 
geographical  conditions,  of  race,  language,  and  religion,  we  must 
also  recognize  the  historical  fact  that  states  have  been  developed 
and  enlarged  by  conquest.  In  whatever  way  a  people  may  have 
become  united  in  a  nation,  we  recognize  the  right  to  self-govern¬ 
ment  and  authority  to  exercise  it  coming  to  the  people  from  God, 
and  the  necessity  of  political  organization  in  which  the  people 
transmit  their  authority  to  an  organized  government  representing 
the  people  and  responsible  to  them. 

In  the  history  of  the  past  we  find  families  developing  into  clans, 
clans  into  tribes,  and  tribes  into  nations.  The  tendency  has  been 


528  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


to  a  more  comprehensive  unity.  In  our  century  this  tendency 
has  manifested  itself  in  the  union  of  the  states  of  Germany  in  the 
German  empire,  of  the  Italian  states  in  the  Italian  kingdom,  and 
in  the  extension  of  the  British  empire  to  all  parts  of  the  world. 
We  may  hope  for  a  more  comprehensive  unity  in  the  future.  The 
practice  of  the  old  Saxons  with  their  divisions  into  tens  and  hun¬ 
dreds,  involved  the  far-reaching  principle  that,  in  seeking  a  more 
comprehensive  political  union,  local  interests  must  be  committed 
to  the  local  community,  wider  interests  to  the  larger  community, 
and  the  universal  interests  to  the  organized  government  of  the 
whole.  This  is  the  principle  underlying  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States.  Mr.  Gladstone  has  said,  “  As  the  British  constitution 
is  the  most  subtile  organization  which  has  proceeded  from  pro¬ 
gressive  history,  so  the  American  constitution  is  the  most  wonder¬ 
ful  work  ever  struck  off  at  a  given  time  by  the  brain  and  purpose 
of  man.”  Already  nations  are  consulting  the  rights  and  interests 
of  one  another  and  seeking  to  settle  questions  by  arbitration 
rather  than  by  the  sword.  Already  men  are  thinking  and  speak¬ 
ing  of  the  confederation  of  all  nations  as  possible  to  be  realized 
and  a  legitimate  object  to  labor  for.  Its  realization  is  not  chimer¬ 
ical,  but  practicable  and  reasonably  to  be  hoped  for,  on  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  leaving  local  affairs  to  local  authorities  and  submitting 
only  the  general  interests  of  all  to  the  general  government.  But 
before  this  can  be  done  the  governments  must  understand  that, 
as  they  derive  their  authority  from  God,  so,  as  “  ministers  of  God 
for  good,”  they  must  abandon  the  Satanic  attitude  of  seeking 
each  to  get  advantage  of  the  other  nations  for  its  own  aggrandize¬ 
ment,  and  recognize  themselves  as  under  obligation  to  obey  the 
eternal  law  of  God  from  whom  they  derive  their  authority,  and  in 
universal  good-will  regulated  in  righteousness  seek  to  promote 
the  well-being  of  mankind.  So  all  human  society  may  be  trans¬ 
formed  into  the  kingdom  of  God  and  all  human  governments  be 
brought  into  harmony  and  union. 

The  third  divine  institution  is  the  church,  the  organization  ot 
men  for  mutual  co-operation  in  promoting  their  own  spiritual 
development  and  that  of  their  fellowmen  in  the  worship  and  ser¬ 
vice  of  God  in  the  life  of  love  ;  or,  in  other  words,  in  the  progres¬ 
sive  development  of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  transformation 
of  all  human  society  into  it.  This  institution  cannot  be  con¬ 
sidered  here.  But  in  view  of  the  essential  importance  of  religion 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  529 


in  promoting  the  development  and  progress  of  man  and  the  unity 
of  nations  under  organized  government,  we  see  from  our  present 
point  of  view,  what  has  previously  been  forced  on  our  attention 
in  another  connection,  —  that  a  universal  religion,  the  worship  of 
the  same  God,  is  an  essential  prerequisite  to  the  universal  politi¬ 
cal  union  of  mankind. 

4.  This  doctrine  of  the  divine  authority  of  civil  government 
must  be  distinguished  from  various  current  errors. 

It  must  be  distinguished  from  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  right 
of  kings.  This  probably  originated  in  connection  with  patriarchal 
government  in  early  times.  The  father  of  a  family  was  regarded 
as  having  authority  to  rule  the  family,  even  to  the  extreme  of  tak¬ 
ing  the  life  of  his  child.  At  the  father’s  death  the  eldest  son  or 
the  heir  nearest  akin  would  succeed  him  as  head  of  the  family. 
As  the  family  developed  into  a  clan  and  the  clan  into  a  tribe,  there 
would  always  be  a  patriarch  who  ruled ;  and,  like  the  father,  he 
was  supposed  to  rule  by  divine  right.  As  the  people  developed 
into  a  nation,  in  every  generation  there  would  still  be  the  heredi¬ 
tary  ruler.  In  later  times,  when  the  patriarchal  government  had 
been  forgotten,  the  heir  of  the  royal  family  was  still  supposed  to 
reign  by  divine  right.  At  this  day,  in  the  heart  of  Europe,  the 
young  emperor  of  Germany  in  several  of  his  speeches  has  seemed 
to  assert  his  own  personal  divine  right  to  reign.  On  coins  and 
elsewhere  we  read  the  name  of  a  person  as  king  or  queen  Dei 
Gratia ,  by  the  grace  of  God.  This  is  true  in  the  sense  that 
every  legitimate  government  derives  its  authority  to  rule  ulti¬ 
mately  from  God  and  must  depend  on  him  for  the  successful 
administration  of  the  government.  But  it  is  utterly  false,  if  it 
implies  that  God  has  given  to  any  person  or  family  authority  to 
rule  over  a  people  without  their  consent  and  to  the  extinction  of 
their  right  to  self-government. 

Our  doctrine  of  the  divine  origin  of  the  authority  of  civil  gov¬ 
ernment  is  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  theory  that  the  authority  of 
government  originated  in  the  Social  Contract.  This  is  the  theory 
that  men  in  the  primitive  state  of  nature  were  entirely  free  from 
all  law  and  government,  and  every  one  did  as  he  pleased,  with 
no  obligation  or  responsibility  to  any  government  under  law  and, 
therefore,  owing  no  duty  or  obligation  to  any  other  person.  In 
process  of  time,  men,  finding  certain  inconveniences  and  evils  in 
this  state  of  isolation  and  unrestricted  freedom,  entered  into  a 
vol.  11.  —  34 


530  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


social  contract.  In  this  contract  every  individual  surrendered 
certain  of  his  personal  rights  to  society  in  consideration  of  pro¬ 
tection  to  be  given  by  society  through  the  government.  From 
this  surrender  of  rights  in  this  contract  by  individuals  society  de¬ 
rives  its  authority  to  govern  through  the  organized  government. 
This  theory  was  taught  by  the  Jesuit  Suarez.  Cudworth  says  it 
was  taught  by  Epicurus,  “  the  frame  of  whose  principles  must 
needs  lead  him  to  deny  justice  and  injustice  to  be  natural  things ; 
therefore,  he  decides  that  they  arise  wholly  from  mutual  pacts 
and  covenants  of  men  made  for  their  own  convenience  and 
utility,  and  laws  resulting  from  thence.  .  .  .  For  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  justice  by  itself,  but  only  in  the  mutual  congresses  of  men, 
wheresoever  they  have  entered  into  covenant  not  to  hurt  one  an¬ 
other.”  1  Hobbes  presents  this  theory  as  follows  :  “  For  where 
no  contract  hath  preceded  there  hath  no  right  been  transferred, 
and  every  man  has  a  right  to  everything ;  and,  consequently,  no 
action  can  be  unjust ;  and  the  definition  of  injustice  is  no  other 
than  the  non-performance  of  a  covenant.  .  .  .  Therefore,  before 
the  names  of  just  and  unjust  can  have  place  there  must  be  some 
coercive  power  to  compel  men  equally  to  the  performance  of 
their  covenant  by  the  terror  of  some  punishment  greater  than 
the  benefit  they  expect  by  the  breach  of  their  covenant.”  2  In 
the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in  connection  with  the 
atheistic  upheaval  in  the  French  revolution,  the  belief  gained 
currency  that  this  state  of  individual  independence  of  all  law 
and  obligation  was  the  primitive  state  of  man ;  and  that  it  was 
the  happiest  condition  in  which  man  has  ever  existed.  St. 
Pierre’s  “  Paul  and  Virginia  ”  was  written  as  setting  forth  this 
idea. 

This  theory  of  the  Social  Contract  is  a  pure  fiction  of  the  ima¬ 
gination  entirely  unsupported  by  historical  facts.  Such  a  primi¬ 
tive  state,  in  which  every  individual  did  just  as  he  pleased  free 
from  subjection  to  any  authority  or  law  and  with  no  distinction 
between  right  and  wrong,  never  existed,  and  never  could  exist  in 
a  society  of  rational  persons.  There  is  no  historical  evidence 
that  any  such  social  contract  was  ever  made.  And  such  an  origin 
of  authority  to  govern  and  of  justice  and  right  is  impossible  and 

1  “Intellectual  System  of  the  Universe,”  Ed.  Gould  and  Newman,  An¬ 
dover,  1838,  vol.  ii.  p.  369. 

2  “  Works,”  vol.  iii.  129,  130,  131. 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  53 1 


absurd.  By  the  supposition  every  individual  is  absolutely  free 
from  all  law  and  government  and  no  one  has  any  right  to  control 
any  other.  The  individual  could  not  surrender  to  society  a  right 
which  he  never  had.  Moreover,  the  supposition  that  as  soon  as 
the  contract  is  made  the  persons  are  under  obligation  to  live  up 
to  it,  and  that  to  break  it  becomes  unjust,  assumes  the  existence 
of  a  moral  law  supreme  above  all  individual  will  and  all  personal 
contracts.  Otherwise  the  question  remains  unanswered,  How 
comes  it  to  be  wrong  for  the  absolutely  independent  and  lawless 
person  to  violate  his  contract? 

The  theory  of  the  Social  Contract  also  excludes  Reason  in  God 
and  man  as  the  source  of  authority  and  law  and  rests  on  the  ab¬ 
solute  supremacy  of  arbitrary  will.  The  theory,  indeed,  assumes 
the  existence  of  rights  in  the  so-called  state  of  nature.  But  in 
this  it  contradicts  itself.  A  right  is  correlative  to  duty.  Both 
right  and  duty  presuppose  law,  authority,  and  government  already 
existing.  Of  course  the  surrender  of  a  right  cannot  be  the  foun¬ 
dation  of  law  and  authority,  since  the  existence  of  rights  neces¬ 
sarily  presupposes  obligation  and  duty,  law  and  authority. 

Stripping  the  theory  from  the  illusion  arising  from  using  the 
word  rights ,  what  is  the  state  of  nature  which  it  presupposes? 
Simply  a  state  of  entire  lawlessness,  in  which  every  man  does 
what  he  will,  hindered  only  by  the  resistance  of  others  seeking 
also  to  have  their  own  way ;  a  reign  of  mere  force,  a  struggle  for 
supremacy  won  by  the  strongest.  There  remains  nothing  but 
will-force  from  which  to  develop  the  idea  of  government,  —  the 
reign  of  the  strongest.  If  that  is  all,  the  idea  of  law  and  right 
as  distinguished  from  might  has  no  place.  The  ideas  of  law  and 
right  cannot  be  developed  out  of  the  idea  of  force.  Might  can¬ 
not  make  right.  Rightful  law  and  authority  must  exist  above  all 
the  might  of  man,  or  they  do  not  exist  at  all.  The  theory,  there¬ 
fore,  necessarily  implies  that  the  source  of  all  law  and  govern¬ 
ment  is  the  will  of  the  persons  governed.  Whatever  they  demand 
is  right  and  must  be  enforced.  '  It  comes  back  to  the  old  maxim 
of  the  despot,  “  Sic  volo,  sic  jubeo ;  sit  pro  ratione  voluntas.” 
One  person,  by  mere  force  of  will  apart  from  reasonable  grounds, 
has  no  right  or  authority  to  control  another.  If  one  has  not, 
then  a  hundred,  a  thousand,  a  million,  have  not.  The  product 
of  zero  multiplied  by  any  number  however  large,  is  always  zero. 
John  C.  Calhoun,  maintaining  a  theory  of  government  essentially 


532  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


the  same  with  the  Social  Contract,  argues  that  “  by  nature  every 
individual  has  a  right  to  govern  himself.”  But  self-government 
is  merely  self-control  in  obedience  to  a  law  already  existing,  and 
cannot  itself  be  the  origin  or  ground  of  all  authority,  law,  and 
government. 

The  theory  of  the  Social  Contract  is  a  futile  attempt  to  bring 
up  authority  from  beneath,  to  develop  it  out  of  that  which  does 
not  contain  it.  It  is  an  attempt  to  create  the  fountain  from  its 
streams. 

The  right  of  the  majority  to  rule,  so  far  as  it  is  founded  on  the 
theory  of  Social  Contract,  rests  on  no  appeal  to  reason  and  its 
principles  and  laws,  but  is  simply  the  rule  of  the  superior  number, 
and  so,  closely  analogous  to  the  right  to  rule  founded  on  superior 
force.  The  majority,  then,  may  carry  out  its  will,  and  the  minor¬ 
ity  have  no  rights  which  the  majority  are  bound  to  respect. 
Should  the  party  in  the  minority  at  the  next  election  become 
a  majority,  its  will  will  be  law  and  it  may  in  like  manner  override 
all  rights  and  interests  of  the  minority.  It  is  still  the  rule  of 
arbitrary  will  enforced  by  superior  power.  It  is  substituting  a 
myriad-headed  despot,  for  the  despotism  of  one.  And  the 
former  would  be  more  terrible  than  the  latter.  This  false  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  right  of  the  majority,  as  vitiated  by  the  theory  of  the 
Social  Contract,  is  severely  criticised  by  Herbert  Spencer,  who 
calls  it  The  Great  Political  Superstition.1 

We  find  two  indestructible  factors,  and  the  problem  is  to  recog¬ 
nize  each  in  its  full  significance  and  both  in  harmony.  One  is 
the  sovereign  authority  of  law  and  government.  The  other  is  the 
inalienable  rights  of  man  inherent  in  his  rational  personality  and 
involving  his  right  to  self-government.  The  tendency  has  been  to 
a  one-sided  theory  of  the  authority  of  government,  emphasizing 
one  factor  to  the  suppression  of  the  other.  Many  nations  have 
held  to  the  divine  right  of  kings,  sometimes  carrying  it  so  far  as  to 
regard  the  king  himself  as  a  god  and  an  object  of  worship.  The 
prevalence  of  this  belief  shows  at  least  that  the  belief  in  the  divine 
origin  of  the  authority  of  government  is  congenial  to  the  human 
mind,  as  the  worship  of  false  gods  shows  that  the  human  soul  nat¬ 
urally  cries  out  for  God.  On  the  other  hand,  the  theory  of  pop¬ 
ular  government  by  vote  of  the  majority  has  been  pushed  in  a 
one-sided  way  to  an  equal  extreme.  But,  held  apart  from  the 

1  “The  Contemporary  Review,”  July,  18S4,  pp.  24-48. 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  533 


recognition  of  God  as  the  ultimate  source  of  authority  and  law,  it 
is  in  its  issue  self-contradictory  and  meaningless,  bursting  like  a 
bubble  into  nothingness.  Bentham  speaks  of  government  as 
“  creating  rights  which  it  confers  on  individuals ;  rights  of  per¬ 
sonal  security,  rights  of  protection  for  honor,  rights  of  property,” 
and  others.  This  and  every  theory  that  the  fundamental  rights 
of  man  are  artificially  created  by  enactment  of  the  government 
issues  in  contradiction  and  becomes  meaningless.  The  people 
organize  the  government  and  confer  on  it  authority  to  govern  ; 
the  government,  thus  the  creature  of  the  people,  proceeds  to 
create  rights  and  confer  them  on  the  individual  members  of  the 
sovereign  people  that  created  the  government  and  gave  it  its  au¬ 
thority.  Professor  J  evons,  in  his  work,  “  The  State  in  Relation  to 
Labor,”  says:  “The  first  step  must  be  to  rid  our  minds  of  the 
idea  that  there  are  any  such  things  as  abstract  rights.”  But  every 
theory  that  the  right  of  the  people  to  sovereignty  originates  in  the 
people  themselves,  must  remain  a  mere  abstraction.  It  is  only  as 
we  go  back  of  the  people  and  of  the  finite  universe  to  the  Reason 
absolute  and  eternal  in  God,  that  we  find  the  concrete  and  immut¬ 
able  basis  of  all  principles  of  truth,  laws  of  right,  ideals  of  perfec¬ 
tion  and  well-being,  and  of  the  authority  of  government.  Even 
those  who  hold  the  theory  that  the  authority  of  the  people  through 
their  representatives  to  govern  themselves  is  a  natural  right 
(Natur-rechf),  must  explain  what  they  mean  by  a  natural  right. 
If  it  rests  solely  on  the  fact  that  the  individual  is  born  a  member 
of  the  race,  that  the  race  is  composed  pf  individuals  and  that  it  is 
natural  for  the  individuals  to  be  united  in  society,  we  do  not  reach 
a  basis  of  authority.  We  remain  in  the  sphere  of  nature  only, 
and  the  same  might  be  said  of  a  race  of  wolves,  a  herd  of  deer, 
or  a  flock  of  crows.  We  find  authority  only  as  we  penetrate  to  the 
rational,  personal,  and  spiritual  in  man,  wherein  he  is  constituted 
self-determining  in  the  light  of  reason  and  in  the  likeness  of  God, 
the  absolute  and  eternal  Reason.  This  carries  us  back  to  the  truth 
that  all  authority  to  govern  is  from  God.  An  examination  of  the 
theories  evolved  in  discussing  the  ultimate  foundation  of  author¬ 
ity  to  govern  shows  that  they  all  dissolve  into  emptiness,  they  all 
rest  at  last  on  empty  abstractions,  unless  we  recognize  God  as 
the  absolute  Reason,  in  whom  the  fundamental  principles  of  truth, 
laws  of  right,  and  ideals  of  perfection  and  well-being  are  eternal 
and  immutable, — who  has  constituted  and  is  evolving  the  universe 


534  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


in  accordance  with  these  eternal  principles  and  laws  and  for  the 
progressive  realization  of  these  archetypal  ideals,  and  who  has 
constituted  man  rational  like  himself,  and  so  participating  in  the 
light  of  the  eternal  reason  and  conscious  of  its  supreme  and  invio¬ 
lable  authority.  God  has  also  revealed  himself  as  sovereign  and 
as  the  ultimate  source  of  all  human  sovereignty  in  his  historical 
action  in  the  redemption  of  men  from  sin  recorded  in  the  Bible. 
The  supreme  law  which  he  thus  reveals  is  the  law  of  love,  of  uni¬ 
versal  good-will  exercised  in  righteousness  toward  all.  Thus  the 
basis  of  authority  is  at  the  farthest  possible  remove  from  a  mere 
abstraction.  It  is  in  God,  in  whom  all  law  and  authority  are  eter¬ 
nal,  and  so  at  the  very  basis  of  the  constitution  of  the  universe  and 
regulative  of  its  evolution,  and  of  the  constitution  of  man  and  law 
to  his  action  and  development.  Herbert  Spencer  says  :  “  The 
root  of  all  well-ordered  social  action  is  a  sentiment  of  justice, 
which  at  once  insists  on  personal  freedom  and  is  solicitous  for  the 
like  freedom  of  others.”  1  But  this  is  so  only  because  this  senti¬ 
ment  of  justice,  incorporated  in  the  law  of  love,  is  the  supreme 
law  of  the  moral  universe  eternal  in  God,  the  absolute  Reason. 
No  government,  human  or  divine,  has  authority  to  enact  and 
enforce  an  unjust  law  and  thereby  make  it  just.  It  is  only  as 
governments,  as  well  as  individuals,  recognize  the  supremacy  of  the 
law  of  God  and  act  in  harmony  with  it,  that  the  people  attain 
their  highest  freedom  and  their  most  complete  self-government ; 
and  all  individuals  and  all  nations  attain  their  just  rights  and 
come  into  harmony  and  unity  under  the  law  of  universal  good¬ 
will  exercised  in  righteousness  toward  all.  Here  is  the  funda¬ 
mental  distinction  between  the  Red  Republicanism  of  Europe 
and  the  conception  of  Republican  government  and  of  the  rights 
and  liberty  of  the  people  underlying  the  development  of  Republi¬ 
can  government  in  the  United  States  of  America. 

The  true  doctrine  that  civil  government  derives  its  authority 
from  God  must  be  distinguished  from  the  medieval  doctrine  that  the 
civil  government  derives  its  authority  from  God  through  the  church. 
The  church  derives  authority  to  rule  directly  from  God  ;  the  civil 
government  mediately  through  the  church.  Hence  the  church 
claimed  the  right  to  absolve  the  people  from  their  allegiance  to 
the  civil  government,  to  put  the  kingdom  under  a  ban.  This  is 

1  From  Freedom  to  Bondage;  Introduction  to  A  Plea  for  Liberty;  An 
Argument  against  Socialism  and  Socialistic  Theories. 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  535 


directly  contrary  to  the  teaching  and  example  of  Christ.  He  de¬ 
clared,  “  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world  ”  ;  he  was  often  rebut¬ 
ting  the  false  expectation  of  the  Pharisees  that  the  Messiah  would 
establish  a  political  kingdom  ;  when  requested  to  exercise  a  civil 
function,  he  refused,  saying,  “  Who  made  me  a  judge  or  divider 
over  you”?  It  is  equally  contrary  to  the  teaching  and  example 
of  the  apostles.  It  recognizes  the  great  truth  that  civil  govern¬ 
ment  derives  its  authority  from  God,  but  falls  into  a  fatal  error  in 
practically  applying  it.  It  is  interesting  to  notice,  in  the  history 
of  the  medieval  church,  instances  in  which  a  great  truth  is 
recognized,  sometimes  in  advance  of  the  age,  while  its  full  prac¬ 
tical  significance  is  not  apprehended,  or  it  is  vitiated  in  its 
application. 

5.  A  government  may  be  authorized  by  the  people,  either 
explicitly  by  vote,  or  implicitly  by  acquiescence.  Many  govern¬ 
ments  have  been  established  by  military  force.  But  in  the  lapse 
of  years  the  government  is  gradually  modified  into  harmony  with 
the  will  of  the  people,  and  the  people  consent  to  its  continuance. 
The  history  of  the  government  of  Great  Britain  is  a  remarkable 
example,  under  which 

Freedom  broadens  slowly  down 

From  precedent  to  precedent.  —  Tennyson. 

The  United  States  of  America  is  a  rare  instance  of  a  government 
instituted  under  a  written  constitution  adopted  by  vote  of  the 
people.  Sparks,  in  his  “  Life  of  Sir  Henry  Vane,”  says  that  it  is 
the  first  written  constitution  that  ever  became  practically  effective 
as  the  constitution  of  a  nation. 

II.  The  Function  of  Government.  —  We  proceed  to  con¬ 
sider  some  principles  determining  the  legitimate  lines  of  the 
action  of  an  organized  government. 

1.  The  function  of  government  is  to  govern.  The  people 
choose  their  rulers.  When  thus  chosen,  their  business  is  to  rule  ; 
but  to  rule  in  recognition  of  the  subjection  of  government  itself 
to  the  principles  of  righteousness  and  good-will  eternal  in  the  su¬ 
preme  law  of  God.  The  rulers  are  to  study  what  are  the  best  ways 
of  practically  applying  these  principles.  For  this  end  they  are  to 
enact  just  laws,  adjudicate  and  execute  them  justly,  and  admin¬ 
ister  the  government  for  the  protection  of  the  rights  of  the  indi- 


536  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


vidual  and  the  promotion  of  the  well-being  of  society.  Therefore 
those  appointed  to  govern  are  not  appointed  as  servants  of 
the  people,  but  as  their  rulers.  The  science  of  government  in¬ 
volves  many  intricate  problems,  which  the  mass  of  the  people 
cannot  be  expected  to  investigate  and  solve.  The  rulers  are 
appointed  for  the  very  purpose  of  investigating  these  problems  in 
order  to  enact  wise  and  just  laws  and  to  administer  the  govern¬ 
ment  wisely  and  righteously  for  the  accomplishment  of  its  legiti¬ 
mate  ends.  History  shows  that  the  people  are  liable  to  be  led 
into  popular  delusions,  like  that  of  the  populists,  the  silver  craze, 
socialism,  communism,  and  anarchy.  It  is  the  business  of  the  rulers 
to  study  these  questions  impartially,  above  all  considerations  of 
personal  popularity  or  partisan  advantage ;  and  by  the  adoption 
of  just  and  wise  laws  and  the  just  administration  of  government  to 
educate  the  people  in  political  knowledge  and  qualification  for 
self-government.  With  all  the  defects  of  the  administration  of 
our  government  and  all  strifes  for  party  supremacy,  the  education 
of  the  people  is  continually  going  on,  so  that  there  is  ground  for 
the  confidence  commonly  expressed  that  the  judgment  of  the 
American  people  on  any  political  question  will  eventually  be  right. 
And  government  must  always  recognize  the  supremacy  of  the  eter¬ 
nal  law  of  good-will  exercised  in  righteousness,  which,  as  the  law 
of  God,  has  authority  above  all  governments  and  all  peoples.  As 
Augustine  says,  “  What  are  states  without  justice  but  great  rob¬ 
beries?  ”  It  is  therefore  an  error  that  rulers  are  the  mere  servants 
of  the  people,  bound  to  carry  out  the  popular  will ;  for  this  implies 
that  the  will  of  the  majority  makes  whatever  it  wills  right.  If  this 
error  is  dominant  and  the  true  function  of  the  rulers  is  forgotten, 
the  government  in  every  department  becomes  worm-eaten  with 
corruption,  laws  are  enacted  and  government  administered  to  per¬ 
petuate  the  office-holders  in  office  and  to  insure  partisan  success 
by  catering  to  the  mistakes  of  the  people  j  a  selfish  bossism  takes 
the  place  of  statesmanlike  leadership  ;  and  a  United  States  senator 
declares  that  any  attempt  to  introduce  moral  principles  in  control 
of  political  action  is  “  an  iridescent  dream.” 

This  doctrine  that  the  will  of  the  majority  creates  right  is  some¬ 
times  founded  on  the  principle  of  Utilitarianism,  —  that  the  supreme 
law  requires  us  to  seek  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  num¬ 
ber.  The  majority  is  the  greatest  number,  and  therefore  it  is  right 
that  they  seek  their  own  highest  happiness.  If,  then,  the  majority 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  537 


believe  that  the  enslaving  of  the  minority  or  their  destruction 
would  promote  their  own  highest  happiness,  it  would  be  right  to 
enslave  or  destroy  them.  There  would  be  no  principle  to  which 
the  minority  could  appeal  for  protection  from  enslavement  or  ex¬ 
termination,  if  unable  to  convince  the  majority  that  by  such  action 
they  would  injure  themselves. 

Such  are  the  general  principles  determining  the  functions  of 
government.  But  in  their  application  it  is  not  always  easy  to 
determine  the  legitimate  limits  of  governmental  action.  Such  was 
the  old  question  whether  the  general  government  of  the  United 
States  should  expend  any  money  in  internal  improvements.  It 
was  argued  in  justification  of  the  government  in  building  a  road, 
that  it  was  a  military  necessity ;  and  in  aiding  the  Union  Pacific 
Railroad  that  it  was  necessary  to  preserve  the  unity  of  the  nation. 
This  implies  that  the  action  of  government  must  be  for  the  interest 
and  need  of  the  whole  people,  not  solely  for  the  advantage  of 
some  favored  class  or  interest.  Therefore  taxes,  direct  or  by 
duties  on  imports  or  exports,  must  be  imposed  only  to  pay  the 
necessary  expenses  of  the  government  and  assessed  according  to 
uniform  principles  applicable  to  all. 

It  was  a  maxim  generally  accepted  by  the  American  people  in 
former  years,  that  the  less  people  are  governed  the  better.  The 
aim  was  to  reduce  governmental  regulation  to  a  minimum.  There 
is  a  tendency  now  to  the  opposite  extreme,  to  push  governmental 
action  into  the  regulation  of  the  details  of  private  business.  This 
is  a  tendency  towards  socialism,  and  ultimately  to  communism. 
It  is  the  principle  of  parental  government.  The  people  are 
regarded  as  helpless  children,  and  the  government  must  take  care 
of  them,  doing  everything  for  them  and  instead  of  them.  It  is  to 
determine  for  every  person  the  line  of  work,  the  number  of  hours 
of  daily  work,  and  what  shall  be  done  with  the  product  of  the 
labor ;  it  provides  for  every  one  clothing  and  shelter,  makes  ready 
for  each  the  daily  meals,  and  provides  whatever  each  needs.  This 
swallowing  up  of  the  individual  in  the  community  is  a  character¬ 
istic  of  barbarism.  Progress  has  always  been  away  from  it  toward 
the  recognition  and  development  of  the  individual.  In  barbarism 
there  is  no  private  ownership  of  land.  In  times  of  tribal  marriage 
the  family  itself  was  lost  in  the  tribe,  and  the  progress  has  been  to 
monogamy.  The  individual  was  lost  in  the  family,  and,  if  one 
committed  a  crime,  the  whole  family  was  held  responsible  and 


538  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


punished,  or  even  put  to  death.  The  individual  was  lost  in  the 
state,  having  no  rights  as  related  to  the  government,  but  only 
owing  duties.  The  progress  has  always  been  in  the  direction  of 
recognizing  the  rights  and  developing  the  powers  of  the  individual. 
The  individual  is  the  unit  of  society  and  of  the  state ;  and  only 
as  thus  recognized  can  the  individual  be  developed  or  the  state 
constituted  and  governed  so  as  to  secure  the  rights  of  all.  It  has 
always  been  found  that  the  ownership  of  land  in  severalty  has 
been  a  stimulus  to  the  development  and  progress  of  the  individual 
and  of  society.  It  is  precisely  what  we  are  now  endeavoring  to 
establish  among  our  Indians,  as  indispensable  to  their  further 
civilization  and  development.  To  bring  society  back  to  com¬ 
munism  or  even  to  socialism  would  be  a  movement  back  towards 
barbarism.  It  would  stop  human  progress  and  development,  and 
occasion  a  degeneracy  of  men  into  weaklings.  This  was  the  de¬ 
mand  of  Jacobinism  in  the  first  French  revolution,  Bread  or  Blood. 
American  democracy  has  nothing  to  do  with  such  a  conception 
of  government.  It  accords  rather  with  Napoleon’s  maxim,  —  a 
career  open  to  talent.  It  is  the  function  of  government  to  pro¬ 
tect  the  individual  in  his  rights  as  he  does  his  own  work,  forms 
and  manages  his  own  family,  supports  himself  and  his  family,  and 
so  develops  himself.  It  is  the  province  of  government,  not  to 
swallow  up  and  extinguish  the  individual,  but  to  protect  him  in 
the  exertion  of  his  own  energies,  and  so  in  securing  his  own 
development.  Hence  it  is  no  function  of  government  to  engage 
directly  in  farming,  mining,  manufacturing,  commerce,  and  other 
lines  of  business,  but  to  protect  the  rights  of  individuals  and 
require  their  just  and  upright  action  in  useful  and  legitimate  work 
and  business  of  every  kind. 

2.  Government  has  the  right,  in  the  exercise  of  its  legitimate 
functions  for  the  legitimate  ends  of  government,  to  take  the 
property,  liberty,  or  life  of  the  citizen.  Such  is  the  right  to 
impose  taxes,  the  right  of  eminent  domain,  the  right  to  com¬ 
mand  military  service  to  repel  invasion  or  repress  insurrection 
and  riot.  But  this  authority  must  be  exercised  with  strict  re¬ 
gard  for  the  rights  of  the  individual,  —  as,  for  example,  in  the 
exercise  of  the  right  of  eminent  domain  the  government  must 
pay  the  owner  the  full  value  of  the  private  property  appropriated 
to  public  use. 

This  right  is  essential  to  the  existence  of  a  government.  If  it 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  539 


has  no  right  to  command  the  service  of  the  people  to  resist 
invasion,  any  foreign  power  might  crush  and  extinguish  the  nation. 
If  it  has  no  authority  to  deprive  of  property,  liberty,  or  life,  in  the 
punishment  of  crime  or  the  suppression  of  a  mob,  any  band  of 
criminals  or  any  single  criminal  might  defy  it  and  any  mob  over¬ 
throw  it.  This  right,  however,  is  limited  to  the  maintenance  of 
the  government  in  its  legitimate  functions  and  for  its  legitimate 
ends. 

Under  God  the  civil  government  alone  has  authority  to  take 
the  property,  liberty,  or  life  of  a  person  in  the  punishment  of 
transgression.  No  individual  has  the  right  to  inflict  punishment 
in  the  strict  meaning  of  the  word.  Parents  have  the  right  to 
control  and  discipline  their  children  for  their  good,  but  not  to 
punish.  A  voluntary  association  has  no  right  to  punish  a  mem¬ 
ber.  Its  utmost  right  is  to  exclude  him  from  membership.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  church.  The  utmost  it  can  do  to  an  unworthy 
member  is  to  withdraw  fellowship  from  him  and  exclude  him  from 
the  church. 

Christianity  positively  forbids  any  private  individual  to  inflict 
evil  on  another  in  revenge  for  an  injury.  The  old  lex  talionis 
is  entirely  excluded.  Moses  modified  it  by  providing  cities  of 
refuge,  into  which  the  avenger  of  blood  should  not  come  and  exe¬ 
cute  his  vengeance.  Christ  totally  forbids  it  (Matth.  v.  38-48). 
The  same  is  the  teaching  of  Paul :  “  Dearly  beloved,  avenge  not 
yourselves,  but  rather  give  place  unto  wrath ;  for  it  is  written, 
Vengeance  is  mine  ;  I  will  repay,  saith  the  Lord.”  He  proceeds 
immediately  to  say  that  God  has  given  authority,  to  the  civil  ruler 
to  punish  transgressors  ;  “  he  beareth  not  the  sword  in  vain  :  for 
he  is  the  minister  of  God,  a  revenger  to  execute  wrath  on  him 
who  doeth  evil”  (Rom.  xii.  19;  xiii.  3,  4).  Where  dueling 
prevailed,  it  was  usual  to  sneer  at  the  custom  in  other  parts  of  the 
land  of  appealing  to  the  law  :  “  I  will  have  my  rights,  or,  I  will 
have  satisfaction  for  the  wrong  done  to  me,  if  there  is  any  law  in 
the  land.”  But  this  is  precisely  the  Christian  principle,  as  Jesus 
and  Paul  declare  it,  forbidding  totally  the  application  of  the  lex 
talionis ,  the  appeal  to  the  pistol  or  the  sword  for  satisfaction  and 
avenging,  and  sanctioning  the  appeal  to  law  and  government. 
As  Shakespeare  puts  it,  — 

His  faults  lie  open  to  the  laws,  let  them, 

Not  you,  correct  them.  —  Henry  VIII. 


540  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


It  must  be  noticed,  however,  that  Christ  and  the  apostles  do  not 
forbid  one  to  defend  himself  against  assault,  or  his  rights  against 
violation.  They  forbid  only  retaliation  by  the  individual  in 
revenge  after  the  injury  has  been  done.  They  imply  that  it  is 
better  to  suffer  injury  than  for  a  person  to  take  vengeance  into 
his  own  hands.  The  private  citizen  is  also  bound  to  do  what 
is  in  his  power  to  assist  the  government  in  detecting  the  criminal 
and  bringing  him  to  punishment.  In  his  private  relations  to  him 
the  person  is  not  to  beat,  torment,  or  kill  him,  inflicting  punish¬ 
ment  with  his  own  hands,  but  to  treat  him  with  kindness,  so  far 
as  is  consistent  with  doing  all  in  his  power  to  aid  the  govern¬ 
ment  in  detecting  him  and  inflicting  the  penalty  prescribed 
by  law. 

3.  Because  the  authority  of  civil  government  is  derived  from 
God,  the  rulers,  in  administering  the  government,  are  bound  to 
recognize  their  dependence  on  God,  the  supreme  authority  of  his 
eternal  moral  law,  and  their  obligation  to  administer  the  govern¬ 
ment  in  conformity  with  it.  While  thus  recognizing  religion  as  an 
important  interest  of  the  people,  and  protecting  all  in  their  reli¬ 
gious  rights,  it  is  not  the  function  of  government  to  prescribe  the 
constitution  and  administration  of  the  organized  church  or  the 
particular  forms  of  religious  belief,  worship,  or  service.  The 
church  is  itself  a  divine  institution,  and  determines  its  organiza¬ 
tion,  worship,  and  service,  in  the  light  of  God’s  revelation  of  him¬ 
self  and  the  teaching  of  the  Spirit.  Christ  has  given  to  the  church 
the  power  of  the  keys,  the  power  to  determine  whom  it  will  receive 
into  its  fellowship  (Matth.  xvi.  15-19)  ;  but  he  has  withheld  the 
power  of  the  sword,  the  authority  to  make  and  enforce  civil  law  and 
to  govern  the  state  and  its  citizens.  Christ  has  given  to  the  state 
the  power  of  the  sword,  and  withheld  from  it  the  power  of  the 
keys,  the  authority  to  determine  who  shall  be  recognized  as  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  church  and  as  true  servants  and  children  of  God.  It 
is  not  the  separation  of  the  state  and  religion,  but  of  the  state  and 
the  organized  church.  This  does  not  mean  that  the  state  is  athe¬ 
istic.  The  government  recognizes  and  protects  religion  as  essen¬ 
tial  to  the  welfare  of  the  people.  It  simply  leaves  individuals  to 
determine  their  own  church  associations  and  their  forms  of  reli¬ 
gious  belief,  worship,  and  service,  provided  they  do  not  commit 
crime,  as  in  inculcating  and  practising  polygamy,  human  sacrifices, 
or  persecution  by  fine,  imprisonment,  or  death,  for  difference  of 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  54 1 


belief  or  forms  of  worship.  The  plea  of  religious  liberty  and 
freedom  of  conscience  can  never  justify  vice  and  crime,  for 
this  would  be  superseding  the  eternal  and  supreme  moral  law 
of  God. 

Both  the  general  government  of  the  United  States  and  that  of 
the  several  States  from  the  beginning,  have  in  various  ways  recog¬ 
nized  God  and  the  supreme  authority  of  his  law.  Chaplains 
officially  appointed  by  the  government  conduct  religious  services 
in  Congress,  in  State  legislatures,  in  the  courts,  and  in  the  army 
and  navy.  God  is  recognized  in  proclamations  of  days  of  thanks¬ 
giving,  and  of  fasting  and  prayer,  in  the  recognition  of  Sunday  as 
a  day  for  religious  worship,  in  oaths  of  office  and  of  witnesses  in 
courts,  and  in  many  official  documents  and  acts  of  government. 
Until  a  comparatively  recent  period,  God  and  religion  were  recog¬ 
nized  in  the  public  schools.  The  tendency  now  is  to  exclude  all 
recognition  of  God  and  of  religion  from  the  schools,  so  that  the 
name  of  God  shall  not  be  mentioned,  the  children  shall  not  be 
taught  that  God’s  moral  law  of  universal  love  is  supreme,  and  that 
they  are  under  obligation  to  reverence  God  and  obey  his  com¬ 
mandments,  nor  ever  hear  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  nor  be 
pointed  to  his  example  of  love  to  man,  nor  in  the  study  of  history 
hear  any  allusion  to  the  power  of  Christianity  in  promoting  the 
progress  of  man.  This  demand  for  the  banishment  of  religion 
and  all  recognition  of  God  from  the  schools,  is  in  direct  con¬ 
trariety  to  the  uniform  official  action  of  our  government  in  all 
other  departments  from  the  beginning.  It  assumes  that  the  state 
is  atheistic.  Its  tendency  is  to  train  children  to  atheism,  to  put 
a  stop  to  the  uniform  historical  usage  of  our  government  in  the 
recognition  of  God  and  the  supreme  authority  of  his  law,  to 
undermine  reverence  for  the  government  as  of  divine  authority, 
to  bring  in  superficial  conceptions  of  government  and  of  the  state 
tending  to  anarchy,  and  to  arrest  the  normal  development  of  the 
national  life  and  character  and  the  normal  progress  of  the  people. 
It  is  not  only  contrary  to  the  whole  historical  course  of  our  own 
government,  but  it  is  probable  that  there  is  no  other  nation  on 
earth  that  has  schools  in  which  the  recognition  of  God  and 
religious  instruction  are  excluded  from  them. 

III.  The  Form  of  Government.  —  The  authority  or  right  to 
govern  must  be  distinguished  from  the  particular  form  of  the 


542  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


organized  government  and  the  agencies  and  methods  of  its  admin¬ 
istration. 

1.  The  particular  form  of  government  is  not  prescribed  by 
Christ  or  the  apostles,  nor  by  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament. 
We  have  no  reason  to  suppose  any  particular  form  of  government 
is  of  divine  authority,  any  further  than  that  it  is  the  form  most 
accordant  with  the  eternal  principles  and  laws  of  right  and  is  the 
best  fitted  to  protect  the  rights  and  promote  the  well-being  of  the 
people.  On  the  contrary,  the  very  fact  that  the  authority  to 
govern  is  given  to  the  people  implies  that  the  people  acting 
according  to  the  best  light  they  have  at  the  time,  are  to  determine 
the  specific  form  of  the  government  and  the  agencies  through 
which  it  is  to  be  administered.  The  state  is  a  divine  institution, 
and  government,  as  essential  to  the  existence  of  the  state  and  of 
human  society,  is  of  divine  authority.  Whatever  the  form  of  the 
government  in  any  particular  time  or  country,  so  long  as  the  peo¬ 
ple  acquiesce  in  it,  the  individual  is  bound  to  obedience.  For  it 
is  essential  to  the  existence  of  society  that  government  in  some 
form  should  exist.  Government  in  any  form  is  better  than 
anarchy. 

2.  The  people  have  the  right  to  modify  the  existing  form  of 
government.  This  may  become  necessary  in  the  lapse  of  time 
from  new  conditions  and  circumstances.  Acts  of  administration 
may  become  necessary  and  be  acquiesced  in  by  the  people,  which 
had  not  previously  been  provided  for  or  even  thought  of.  Exam¬ 
ples  in  the  history  of  our  own  country  are  the  purchase  of  the 
Louisiana  territory,  the  annexation  of  California,  Texas,  and  Alaska, 
and  the  abolition  of  slavery.  Formal  change  in  the  constitution 
itself  rendered  necessary  by  new  conditions  is  exemplified  in  the 
amendments  to  the  constitution  adopted  at  the  close  of  the  civil 
war. 

Changes  become  necessary  also  from  the  progress  of  political 
knowledge  and  the  education  and  development  of  the  people. 

Changes  are  justifiable  only  in  submission  to  the  divine  law  of 
righteousness  and  with  the  design  that  government  may  more 
effectively  accomplish  its  legitimate  ends.  A  republican  form  of 
government  provides  a  way  for  obtaining  an  expression  of  “  the 
collective  reason  of  the  people.”  There  is  a  truth  in  the  maxim 
that  all  men  are  wiser  than  any  one  man.  In  the  voice  of  all 
men  we  get  the  expression  of  opinion  on  any  question  from  all 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  543 


different  points  of  view,  which  may  check  and  balance  each  other 
and  offset  the  narrowness  and  selfishness  of  individuals,  cliques, 
and  parties.  But  it  is  not  true  in  respect  to  intricate  and  difficult 
questions  of  political  economy  and  civil  polity,  which  require  the 
investigation  of  special  students  who  can  investigate  them  thor¬ 
oughly.  The  collective  wisdom  of  the  people  should  lead  them 
to  commit  the  investigation  and  decision  of  such  questions  to 
men  able  to  investigate  and  master  them,  and  honest  and  honor¬ 
able  in  rising  above  selfish  and  partisan  interests  in  order  to  seek 
the  truth  and  the  real  welfare  of  the  people.  Hence  the  aim 
should  be  to  seek  the  rule  of  the  wisest,  ablest,  and  best.  There 
is  still  truth  in  the  words  of  Plato  :  “  Until  philosophers  are  kings, 
or  the  kings  and  princes  of  this  world  have  the  spirit  and  power 
of  philosophy,  and  political  greatness  and  wisdom  meet  in  one, 
and  those  commoner  natures  which  follow  either  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  other  are  compelled  to  stand  aside,  cities  will  never  cease 
from  ill  —  no,  nor  the  human  race,  as  I  believe  —  and  then  only 
will  this  our  State  have  a  possibility  of  life  and  behold  the  light  of 
day.”  1  This  brings  us  back  to  the  fundamental  principles  that 
the  improvement  of  the  constitution  and  the  methods  of  admin¬ 
istration  is  possible  only  by  the  progress  and  development  of  the 
people,  and  that  republican  government  rightly  adminstered  is 
itself  a  continued  education  and  development  of  the  people  in 
the  capacity  for  self-government  and  for  making  wise  and  benefi¬ 
cent  changes  in  the  constitution  and  administration  of  the  govern¬ 
ment.  We  see  also  the  propriety  of  an  educational  qualification 
for  the  right  to  vote. 

On  account  of  human  limitation  and  imperfection  the  powers 
of  the  government  are  distributed  in  different  departments,  not 
only  for  the  necessary  division  of  labor  and  responsibility,  but 
also  that  the  different  departments  may  act  as  checks  and  bal¬ 
ances  on  each  other  and  so  contribute  to  the  prevention  of  mal¬ 
administration  through  mistake  or  corruption. 

A  proper  constitution  of  government  provides  methods  for  the 
peaceable  change  of  the  constitution  by  the  people. 

3.  The  character  of  the  changes  must  be  determined  by  the 
character  of  the  government  already  existing  and  by  the  stage 
of  development  and  progress  already  attained  by  the  people. 
We  are  to  recognize  the  fact  that  society  is  already  organized 

1  The  Republic,  Bk.  V.  473. 


544  THE  LORD  of  all  in  moral  government 


under  government.  The  government  is  not  like  an  Arab  encamp¬ 
ment,  the  tents  pitched  at  night  and  struck  the  next  morning. 
It  is  intended  for  stability.  Whatever  imperfections  may  exist 
in  the  form  of  organization  and  the  methods  of  administration, 
the  government  is  not  to  be  lightly  brushed  away.  It  is  a  very 
simple  but  far-reaching  maxim  of  Edmund  Burke,  “  If  you  mean 
to  go  anywhere,  you  must  start  from  where  you  are.”  So  in  the 
improvement  of  the  constitution  and  modes  of  government  the 
people  must  start  from  where  they  are.  And  the  improvement 
must  be  commensurate  with  and  preceded  by  the  improvement 
and  development  of  the  people.  We  are  not  to  begin  with  a 
priori  principles  and  infer  what  a  perfect  form  of  government 
ought  to  be,  and  then  attempt  to  raze  existing  institutions  to  their 
foundations  and  rebuild  the  State  anew,  aiming  to  establish  at 
once  an  ideally  perfect  State.  The  people  are  not  prepared  for 
so  great  a  change,  but  must  be  educated  up  to  it.  Otherwise  the 
attempt  to  force  on  them  a  civilization  to  which  they  have  not 
attained  and  ideas  for  which  they  are  not  prepared,  is  what 
Jesus  describes  as  putting  new  wine  into  old  wine-skins,  which 
issues  both  in  bursting  and  destroying  the  old  skins  and  in  spill¬ 
ing  the  wine.  The  people  must  be  developed  to  see  the  need 
of  changes  and  to  know  what  the  changes  should  be.  In  this 
process  of  progressive  development  important  changes  may  be 
gradually  made  in  the  constitution  of  the  government  and  the 
methods  of  its  administration,  either  at  the  demand  of  the  people 
or  as  a  result  of  the  progress  of  society  and  civilization,  in  which 
the  people  acquiesce.  For  example,  a  people  may  be  con¬ 
quered  and  the  conquerors  set  up  their  government  over  them. 
But  in  process  of  time  the  two  peoples  may  coalesce,  the  con¬ 
quered  may  be  admitted  to  citizenship  and  participation  in 
the  government,  and  all  may  acquiesce.  The  people  of  England 
from  the  time  of  the  Magna  Charta  have  won  their  political  liberty 
by  grants  from  the  rulers  in  response  to  the  demands  of  the 
people.  The  theory  of  government  was  wrong,  but  in  fact  the 
people  gained  successively  their  rights.  In  all  wise  attempts  to 
improve  the  constitution  and  administration  of  the  government, 
regard  must  be  had  to  the  existing  government  and  the  exist¬ 
ing  stage  of  the  civilization,  development,  and  progress  of  the 
people. 

4.  The  people  have  the  right  of  revolution  when  the  organized 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  545 


government  has  ceased  to  exist  for  the  good  of  the  governed  and 
for  the  legitimate  ends  of  government  and  by  force  prevents 
reform  or  change.  In  this  case  the  divine  authority  of  the  gov¬ 
ernment  has  ceased  and  reverts  to  the  people.  The  right  to 
revolution  does  not  arise  merely  on  the  enactment  of  some  bad 
laws  or  on  occasion  of  some  acts  of  maladministration  or  oppres¬ 
sion,  but  only  when  the  organized  government  has  ceased  to  exist 
for  the  good  of  the  governed  and  maintains  its  oppression  by 
force.  Such  a  government  has  no  divine  authority  to  govern. 

The  people  are  to  judge  when  the  right  of  revolution  accrues. 
It  is  not  a  mere  handful  of  the  people  rising  in  insurrection,  but 
it  is  the  general  uprising  of  the  people. 

But  revolution  is  a  dangerous  experiment.  History  shows  that 
a  great  majority  of  attempted  revolutions  have  been  disastrous. 
Because  the  independent  national  existence  of  the  United  States 
was  achieved  in  a  revolution,  the  American  people  have  fallen 
into  the  delusion  that  a  revolution  is  always  beneficial  and  glorious. 
When  the  war  of  secession  began,  an  intelligent  and  educated 
man  expressed  to  me  his  sorrow  that  the  secessionists  were  the 
revolutionists,  and  therefore  were  on  the  popular  side.  Jefferson, 
speaking  of  the  Shay  rebellion,  says,  “  The  late  rebellion  in  Mas¬ 
sachusetts  has  given  more  alarm  than  I  think  it  should  have  done. 
Calculate  that  one  rebellion  in  thirteen  States  in  the  course  of 
eleven  years,  is  but  one  rebellion  in  each  State  in  a  century  and 
a  half.  No  country  should  be  so  long  without  a  revolution.”  1 
The  reformation  of  government  and  the  securing  of  the  rights 
of  the  people  are  more  effectually  promoted  by  the  progressive 
education  and  development  of  the  people  and  the  progress  of 
mankind,  than  by  revolution,  —  by  evolution  rather  than  by  revo¬ 
lution.  And  when  a  nation  provides  in  its  constitution,  whether 
written  or  by  precedent,  the  method  of  changing  the  constitution, 
there  remains  little  occasion  for  revolution. 

IV.  The  Rights  of  Man.  —  Rufus  Choate  speaks  of  “  the 
glittering  and  sounding  generalities  of  natural  right  which  make 
up  the  Declaration  of  Independence.”  2  This  exemplifies  a  ten¬ 
dency  of  late  to  set  aside  as  mere  rhetorical  flourish  the  grand 
propositions  in  that  Declaration  asserting  the  rights  of  man  in 

1  Works,  vol.  ii.  p.  331. 

2  Letter  to  the  Maine  Whigs,  April  9,  1856,  “  Life,”  2d  ed.,  p.  306. 

vol.  ir. —  35 


546  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


relation  to  government.  The  following  propositions  seem  to  me 
to  present  the  truth  on  this  subject,  in  respect  to  which  there  has 
been  much  confusion  of  thought. 

1 .  There  are  inalienable  rights  of  man  inherent  in  his  manhood 
or  personality  ;  that  is,  in  his  constitution  as  a  rational  self- 
determining  person,  in  the  likeness  of  God,  the  absolute  Spirit. 
Man  is  like  God  in  his  constitution  as  a  rational  personal  being, 
differing  from  him  not  in  the  essential  elements  of  rational  per¬ 
sonality,  but  only  as  the  finite  and  dependent  differs  from  the 
absolute  and  unconditioned.  These  rights  inherent  in  his  person¬ 
ality  are  inalienable,  and  indestructible  otherwise  than  by  the 
annihilation  of  the  person.  A  man  is  never  to  be  acquired,  pos¬ 
sessed,  and  used  by  any  other  man,  or  by  any  association  of  men, 
or  any  government.  No  one  may  use  him  as  a  tool  for  accom¬ 
plishing  his  purposes,  or  as  a  stepping-stone  on  which  to  mount 
to  power.  Man  as  a  rational  person  is  set  apart  as  the  object  of 
trust  and  service  in  good-will,  regulated  in  its  exercise  by  wisdom 
and  justice.  “Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.”  “Who¬ 
soever  would  be  first  among  you,  let  him  be  your  servant ;  even  as 
the  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister 
and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many.” 

The  assertion  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  that  all  men 
are  born  equal  is  true.  All  are  born  rational  persons  in  the  like¬ 
ness  of  God  ;  all  have  equal  access  to  God  on  the  same  condi¬ 
tions  ;  all  have  equal  rights  before  God.  It  is  true  that  all 
are  not  born  equal  in  weight,  or  in  physical  constitution,  or  in 
outward  surroundings.  But  this  does  not  discredit  the  assertion 
in  its  real  significance,  that  all  men  are  born  equal  as  personal 
beings  in  the  likeness  of  God,  and  equal  before  him  as  having  the 
dignity,  rights,  and  obligations  of  rational  beings. 

2.  Rights  are  correlative  to  duties.  If  a  man  owes  me  five 
dollars,  I  have  a  right  to  the  payment  of  it.  Always  one  person’s 
duty  to  another  implies  the  other  person’s  right  to  have  the  duty 
done.  Rights,  therefore,  are  as  inalienable  as  duties.  Both  must 
persist  so  long  as  God’s  law  persists  and  is  of  supreme  authority 
throughout  the  universe.  Man’s  duties  and  their  correlative  rights 
are  as  indestructible  as  the  law  of  God,  and  both  duties  and  rights 
are  inalienable.  Human  rights,  therefore,  are  inherent  in  the 
raw  material  of  humanity. 

“  The  rank  is  but  the  guinea’s  stamp  ; 

The  man ’s  the  gold  for  all  that.” 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  547 

Mr.  Spencer  says  that  a  person’s  rights  or  freedom  are  restricted 
only  by  the  rights  or  freedom  of  others.  The  true  statement 
would  be  that  a  person’s  rights  are  correlative  to  the  duties  of 
others  and  restricted  by  his  own  duties  to  others.  When  organ¬ 
ized  government  exists,  it  and  the  individual  man  are  two  parties 
or  legal  persons.  The  rights  of  the  government  are  correlative 
to  the  duties  of  individuals,  and  the  rights  of  individuals  correla¬ 
tive  to  the  duties  of  the  government.  There  remains  no  place 
for  the  old  theory  of  despotism,  that  the  individual  has  no  rights 
as  related  to  the  government,  but  only  owes  duties,  and  that  the 
government  owes  no  duties  to  the  individual,  but  only  exercises 
rights.  Governments  are  subject  to  the  eternal  law  of  God  not 
less  than  individuals. 

A  committee  of  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts,  in  1875,  on 
the  system  of  taxation,  say  in  their  report,  “  The  individual  has 
no  inalienable  rights  except  that  to  his  own  righteousness.”  This 
is  true.  But  it  is  an  identical  proposition,  simply  saying  that  a 
person  has  a  right  to  do  right,  but  no  right  to  do  wrong.  Still  it 
is  a  recognition  of  a  law  of.  right  above  all  legislative  enactments. 
It  would  have  been  more  significant  if  it  had  said  that  a  man  has 
the  right  to  the  righteousness  of  other  people ;  that  is,  a  right 
that  others  should  do  their  duty  and  fulfil  their  obligations 
to  him.  If  these  obligations  are  imposed  by  statute,  the  person 
can  appeal  to  the  courts,  and  government  will  enforce  the  fulfil¬ 
ment  of  the  obligation.  If  it  is  not  a  statute,  but  a  require¬ 
ment  of  God’s  moral  law,  God  will  condemn  the  person  who 
fails  to  meet  his  obligations,  and  so  violates  the  rights  of  other 
persons. 

Christ,  the  apostles,  and  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament 
have  comparatively  little  to  say  of  man’s  rights,  but  insist  strenu¬ 
ously  on  his  duties.  It  would  be  helpful  to  human  progress  if 
every  one  would  emphasize  his  own  duties  rather  than  his  rights, 
and  so  work  to  insure  the  rights  of  others  while  not  neglecting 
his  own. 

3.  Here  we  see  the  real  significance  of  the  distinction  between 
natural  rights  and  positive.  Natural  rights  are  those  which 
are  inherent  in  the  manhood  or  personality  of  man ;  positive 
rights  are  rights  conferred  by  the  explicit  action  of  the  govern¬ 
ment  ;  and  natural  rights  become  also  positive  when  recognized  or 
declared  in  the  action  of  the  government.  The  natural  rights  of 


548  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 

the  individual,  or  of  man  as  man,  are  to  be  recognized  and  pro¬ 
tected  by  the  government,  but  they  are  not  created,  granted,  or 
conferred  by  the  government.  The  theory  of  the  British  govern¬ 
ment  is  that  from  the  time  of  the  Magna  Charta  the  liberty  and 
rights  of  the  people  have  been  gradually  obtained  by  successive 
grants  from  the  sovereign.  They  are  privileges  granted  rather 
than  rights.  The  rights  of  the  individual  are  so  far  secured. 
But  the  underlying  theory  is  that  of  despotism,  that  the  people 
have  no  rights  as  related  to  the  government,  but  only  owe  duties ; 
and  that  the  government  owes  no  duties  to  the  people,  but  only 
exercises  rights,  and  that  all  rights  are  vested  in  the  absolute 
sovereignty  of  the  ruler,  and  all  so-called  rights  of  the  people  are 
mere  privileges  granted  by  the  sovereign  and  continued  during 
his  good  pleasure. 

If  a  person  transgresses  the  positive  law  of  civil  government, 
he  forfeits  his  right  to  protection  by  the  government  and  is  con¬ 
demned  and  punished.  If  he  transgresses  the  eternal  law  of  God, 
the  law  of  love,  and  lives  in  selfishness,  he  forfeits  his  right  to  the 
favor  of  God  and  is  condemned  as  a  sinner.  His  rights  are  not 
taken  from  him,  he  forfeits  them  by  his  own  free  act. 

4.  The  doctrine  of  the  worth  of  man  and  the  sacredness  of 
his  rights  was  made  a  power  in  the  progress  of  civilization  by 
Christianity.  God’s  estimate  of  the  worth  and  dignity  of  man  is 
revealed  in  his  creation.  He  gave  him  dominion  over  nature 
and  made  him  but  little  lower  than  the  angels  (Gen.  i.  26,  27  ; 
Ps.  viii. ;  Heb.  ii.  5-9).  It  is  revealed  pre-eminently  in  the  In¬ 
carnation,  God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself. 
Man  is  so  in  the  likeness  of  God  in  his  higher  spiritual  constitu¬ 
tion  that  God  can  reveal  himself  acting  in  Christ  under  the  limi¬ 
tations  and  conditions  of  humanity.  God  esteems  man  of  so 
much  worth  that  he  comes  in  Christ  to  reconcile  the  world  unto 
himself.  And  he  abides  among  men  in  the  Holy  Spirit  seeking 
to  draw  them  to  himself,  accepting  all  who  willingly  accept  the 
proffered  grace,  dwelling  in  them  to  enlighten  and  quicken  them 
in  the  divine  life  and  making  them  workers  with  him  in  the 
advancement  of  his  kingdom.  The  command,  Enter  into  thy 
closet  and  shut  the  door  and  pray  to  thy  Father,  discloses  God’s 
estimate  of  the  greatness  and  worth  of  man,  admitting  every  one 
who  will  to  confidential  intimacy  with  himself,  the  universal  sove¬ 
reign.  The  proclamation  of  Christianity  is  in  itself  the  clearest 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  549 


and  fullest  proclamation  of  the  dignity  and  rights  of  man.  Ac¬ 
cordingly  it  is  historical  fact  that  the  progress  in  recognizing  and 
insuring  the  rights  of  man  has  been  mostly,  if  not  exclusively,  in 
the  Christian  peoples. 

Ungrateful  country,  if  thou  e’er  forget 

The  sons  who  for  thy  civil  rights  have  bled  .  .  . 

But  these  had  fallen  for  profitless  regret, 

Had  not  the  holy  church  her  champions  bred, 

And  claims  from  other  worlds  inspirited 
The  star  of  liberty  to  rise.  Nor  yet 
(Grave  this  within  thy  heart)  if  spiritual  things 
Be  lost  through  apathy,  or  scorn,  or  fear, 

Shalt  thou  thy  humbler  franchises  support, 

However  hardly  won  or  justly  dear. 

What  came  from  heaven  to  heaven  by  nature  clings, 

And  if  dissevered  thence,  its  course  is  short.  —  Wordsworth. 

5.  Political  progress  does  not  rest  on  the  love  of  liberty  but 
on  righteousness.  It  rests  on  a  sacred  regard  to  men’s  duties 
and  their  correlative  rights  under  the  eternal  law  of  God.  The 
love  of  liberty  is  essentially  the  love  of  power,  the  desire  to  have 
one’s  own  way  unhindered  and  with  little  or  no  regard  to  the 
rights  or  liberty  of  others.  It  is  stronger  in  the  savage  than  in 
the  civilized,  —  probably  stronger  in  a  wild  beast  than  in  a  savage. 
It  may  be  wholly  selfish  and  reckless  of  the  rights  of  others.  It 
may  be  consistent  with  allegiance  and  service  to  one’s  own  class, 
rank,  or  caste,  while  reckless  of  the  rights  of  all  others.  The 
spirit  of  chivalry  may  coexist  with  the  spirit  of  aristocracy,  with 
holding  slaves,  or  with  oppressing  all  of  inferior  rank.  Mivart 
mentions  a  “  French  lady  of  the  ancien  regime ,  who  exclaimed, 
on  learning  the  death  of  a  profligate  noble,  'God  will  think  twice 
before  he  damns  a  man  of  the  marquis’s  quality.’  ” 1  The  motto 
of  the  French  revolution  at  the  close  of  the  last  century  was 
Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity.  Here  is  no  recognition  of  right¬ 
eousness,  nor  of  the  supreme  and  universal  authority  of  God. 
Far  more  profound  and  far-reaching  is  the  triad  of  a  Hebrew 
prophet :  “  What  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do 
justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God?” 
(Micah  vi.  8).  The  foundations  of  right  government  are  three, 
—  justice,  and  benevolence  toward  men,  and  reverential  piety 
toward  God. 

1  Mivart,  “Lessons  from  Nature,”  p.  142. 


550  THE  LORD  OF  ALL  IN  MORAL  GOVERNMENT 


6.  When  obedience  to  government  is  disobedience  to  God, 
the  person  is  bound  to  disobey  the  government  and  submit  to 
the  penalty.  A  law  commanding  what  is  contrary  to  God’s  law 
is  to  the  individual  in  foro  conscientice  null  and  void.  No  human 
government  can  give  authority  to  such  a  law  or  create  obligation 
to  obey  it.  Very  soon  after  the  day  of  Pentecost,  Peter  and  John 
were  called  before  the  Council  and  forbidden  to  speak  at  all  or 
to  teach  in  the  name  of  Jesus.  But  Peter  and  John  answered, 
“  Whether  it  be  right  in  the  sight  of  God  to  hearken  unto  you 
rather  than  unto  God,  judge  ye”  (Acts  iv.  19).  Thus  at  the 
very  outset  in  the  development  of  Christianity  it  was  proclaimed 
that  civil  government  cannot  give  authority  to  a  law  requiring 
violation  of  the  law  of  God,  or  create  obligation  to  obey  it.  And 
they  appealed  to  the  reason  and  conscience  of  the  rulers  them¬ 
selves  to  acknowledge  that  they  were  right  in  refusing  obedience. 
This  grand  principle  had  been  recognized  before  Christ  came, 
not  only  in  the  Old  Testament,  but  also  in  the  Gentile  religions. 
Plutarch  says,  “The  Egyptian  kings,  according  to  their  laws,  used 
to  swear  their  judges  that  they  should  not  obey  the  king  when  he 
commanded  them  to  give  an  unjust  sentence.”1  Sophocles  in 
the  “Antigone”  recognizes  the  same  grand  principle. 

“  Creon  :  ‘  And  darest  thou,  then,  to  disobey  the  law  ?  ’ 

Antigone  :  ‘  I  had  it  not  from  Jove  nor  the  just  gods 
Who  rule  below;  nor  could  I  ever  think 
A  mortal’s  law  of  power  or  strength  sufficient 
To  abrogate  th’  unwritten  law  divine, 

Immutable,  eternal ;  not  like  these 
Of  yesterday,  but  made  ere  time  began. 

Shall  man  persuade  me,  then,  to  violate 

Heaven’s  great  command  and  make  the  gods  my  foes  ?  ’  ” 

I  his  right  exists,  not  when  a  law  is  merely  unwise,  injudicious, 
01  inexpedient ;  but  only  when  obedience  to  the  law  is  believed 
to  be  disobedience  to  God.  Mere  oppression  and  tyranny  do 
not  justify  disobedience.  Hie  apostles  and  early  Christians  did 
not  disobey  government  for  these  reasons,  even  under  the  reign 
of  Nero  and  other  Roman  emperors. 

Every  person  must  judge  for  himself  whether  his  disobedience 
to  law  would  be  disobedience  to  God. 


1  “  Apophthegms  of  Kings  and  Great  Commanders,”  Morals,  vol.  i.  p.  189, 
Goodwin’s  Translation. 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  55 1 

A  person  in  such  a  case  may  disobey,  but  he  may  not  resist 
the  government.  Resistance  is  justifiable  only  when  revolution 
is  justifiable  in  the  uprising  of  the  people  to  change  the  govern¬ 
ment.  Resistance  is  of  the  nature  of  revolution.  When  offered 
by  an  individual  it  is  futile.  One  who  thus  disobeys  and  is 
arrested,  must  submit  to  the  penalty.  Blackstone  says  that  when 
laws  require  natural  duties  and  forbid  offences  which  are  mala  in 
se,  there  is  no  occasion  for  conscientious  disobedience.  But 
when  laws  require  only  positive  duties  and  forbid  only  what  are 
not  mala  in  se  but  only  mala  prohibita ,  a  person  may  disobey  but 
must  submit  to  the  penalty  which  the  law  imposes  on  the  trans¬ 
gressor.1  Much  more  would  a  person  have  the  right  to  conscien¬ 
tious  disobedience  when  a  positive  enactment  or  law  of  the 
government  requires  what  is  contrary  to  the  natural  duties  and 
rights  required  in  the  eternal  law  of  God.  In  thus  conscien¬ 
tiously  disobeying  and  submitting  to  the  penalty  without  resist¬ 
ance  when  arrested,  the  citizen  keeps  his  own  conscience  clear 
and  at  the  same  time  is  submissive  to  the  authority  of  the  gov¬ 
ernment.  This  submission  to  penalty  is  a  safeguard  against  a 
rash  and  hasty  judgment  that  obedience  to  the  law  would  be 
disobedience  to  God. 

Christ  also  teaches  that  if  a  person  is  liable  to  arrest  for  dis¬ 
obeying  a  law  obedience  to  which  he  regards  as  disobedience  to 
God,  he  has  a  right  to  make  his  escape  :  “  When  they  persecute 
you  in  this  city,  flee  ye  into  another”  (Matth.  x.  23).  The 
apostles  taught  the  same  by  their  example,  —  as  the  Christians  in 
Damascus  rescued  Paul  from  his  persecutors,  letting  him  down 
over  the  wall  in  a  basket  (Acts  ix.  23-25). 

This  may  be  called  the  right  to  martyrdom.  All  the  martyrs 
disobeyed  the  authorities  and  submitted  to  the  penalty. 

A  person,  however,  has  the  right  to  proclaim  the  injustice  of 
the  law  and  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  secure  its  repeal.  This  is 
permitted  and  encouraged  in  rightly  constituted  governments. 
It  is  the  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press  essential  in  the 
administration  of  popular  government. 

1  “  Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of  England/’  Ed.  N.  York,  1852,  vol.  i. 
P-38- 


INDEX 


, 


, 

. 


' 


*. 


INDEX 


Ability,  natural  and  moral,  ii.  134-140. 

Absolute  Being,  known  in  a  necessary 
principle  of  reason,  i.  46-50,  118,179; 
recognized  in  all  religions,  i.  46,  48 ; 
by  materialists,  pantheists,  and  agnos¬ 
tics,  i.  48,  49,  167  ;  cannot  be  itself  the 
universe,  i.  49  ;  if  not  known,  all  knowl¬ 
edge  is  illusion,  i.  49  f.  ;  attributes  of,  i. 
114-126;  unconditioned  and  all-con¬ 
ditioning,  i.  1 17  ;  positive,  not  negative, 
i.  1 16;  implies  God’s  nearness  to  us, 
i.  126  ;  can  be  but  one,  i.  157. 

Absolute  Spirit,  the  designation  of  God, 

i.  44,  47  ;  revealed  as  such  in  the  physi¬ 
cal  universe,  i.  50 ;  in  the  constitution 
of  man,  i.  52  ;  in  human  history,  i.  54. 

Adam’s  sin,  felix  culpa ,  i.  235. 

Agassiz,  scientific  classification  the 

thought  of  God,  i.  166. 

Alger,  poetry  of  the  East,  i.  152. 

Alienation  from  God,  ii.  202,  466-470. 

Altruism  not  exclusive  of  self-love,  ii.  24- 
28,  401,  418-423. 

Allen,  Prof.  A.  V.  G.,  continuity  of  re¬ 
ligious  thought,  i.  24. 

- ,  Rev.  Charles  A.,  ii.  481. 

- •  J-  H.,  i.  393. 

Ambrose,  Ethics,  ii.  180. 

Amiel,  ii.  122  ;  self-sufficiency,  ii.  206; 
materialistic  science  stifling  freedom  of 
thought,  ii.  337. 

Amor  amoris,  ii.  73,  171. 

Analogy  of  faith,  i.  13. 

Angelo,  Michael,  the  ideal  of  perfection, 

ii.  299. 

Annihilation  of  the  wicked,  i.  237!. 

Anselm,  God’s  foreknowledge,  i.  558. 

Anthropomorphism,  i.  41,  418. 

Antinomy  of  faith  and  reason,  of  revela¬ 
tion  and  philosophy  dissolved,  i.  45-69. 

Aquinas,  Thomas,  i.  12;  archetypal  ideal, 
i.  131  ;  etymology  of  persona,  i.  329; 
God  infusing  character,  ii.  88  ;  imma¬ 
nence  of  God,  i.  89 ;  sin  as  self-suffici¬ 
ency,  ii.  200. 


Archetypal  thought  of  God,  the  universe 
its  progressive  realization,  i.  228-132; 
its  realization  progressive,  i.  157;  God’s 
purpose  to  realize  it,  i.  497. 

Archimedes,  ascertaining  specific  gravity, 

i.  287. 

Aristippus,  living  for  pleasure,  ii.  153. 

Aristophanes,  ii.  206. 

Aristotle,  refers  virtue  and  vice  to  the 
will,  ii.  64;  virtue  the  mean  between 
extremes,  ii.  145  ;  man  born  a  citizen, 

ii.  524;  Nature  distinguished  from 
character,  ii.  63. 

Arnold,  Edwin,  no  hell  but  what  the  sin¬ 
ner  makes,  ii.  478. 

- ,  Matthew,  on  Jesus  Christ,  i.  456; 

Jesus  and  Schopenhauer,  i.  260;  mo¬ 
rality  and  religion,  ii.  342. 

Asceticism,  true  and  false,  ii.  228,  231. 

Athanasius,  Christ  in  the  Holy  Spirit, 
i.  hi  ;  mystery  of  the  Trinity,  i.  332  ; 
person  of  Christ,  i.  399,  403,  435. 

Athanasian  creed,  one  God,  i.  337;  per¬ 
son  of  Christ,  i.  401. 

Atheism,  dilemma  proposed,  God  either 
not  almighty  or  not  benevolent,  i.  210 ; 
its  solution,  i.  211-214;  no  basis  for 
science,  ethics,  ajsthetics,  and  true 
good,  i.  163-174;  ii.  340;  issues  in 
pessimism,  i.  272  ;  ii.  354. 

Atonement  necessary  in  the  forgiveness 
of  sin,  i.  1 56 f.  ;  ii.  380  ;  objection  that 
made  by  sinners  crucifying  Christ,  i. 
417  ;  supererogatory  merit,  ii.  371 ;  basis 
of  atoning  significance  of  Christ’s  re¬ 
demptive  action,  i.  194;  ii.  345,  373 — 
376,  458,  486,  504,  516. 

Attributes  of  God  as  absolute,  i.  114- 
126;  as  reason,  i.  128;  oneness  of 
God  in  various  aspects,  i.  115;  classi¬ 
fication,  i.  1 1 5 . 

Augsburg  Confession  on  persons  in  the 
Trinity,  i.  333. 

Augustine,  God’s  omnipresence,  i.  121; 
eternity,  i.  126;  archetypal  knowledge, 


556 


INDEX 


i.  129  ;  foreknowledge,  i.  139  ;  one  and 
indivisible,  i.  323 ;  technical  words  in 
defining  the  Trinity,  i.  331,  333;  the 
Holy  Spirit,  i.  351  f . ;  the  humiliation, 

i.  421  ;  creation,  i.  489;  ground  of  law 
in  reason,  i.  553  ;  foreordination,  i.  570; 
music  in  the  church,  ii.  70  ;  sin  as  self- 
sufficiency,  ii.  200  ;  two  commonwealths, 

ii.  210;  God  has  no  wants,  ii.  338  ;  the 
unpardonable  sin,  ii.  450;  alienation 
from  God,  ii.  470 ;  the  sinner’s  misery 
is  his  own  sin,  ii.  477  ;  free  will  lost  in 
the  fall,  ii.  484  ;  States  without  justice 
great  robberies,  ii.  536. 

Austin,  sanction  of  the  law,  ii.  442. 

Babylonian  legends  of  creation,  i.  475. 

Bacon,  Lord,  i.  22,  89;  ii.  201. 

Bain,  Prof.,  conscience  is  fear  of  punish¬ 
ment,  ii.  463. 

Bancroft,  Tri-unity,  i.  397. 

Barry,  Canon,  love  an  instinct,  ii.  83. 

Bartlett,  R.  F.,  history  of  Christian  doc¬ 
trine,  i.  26. 

Bascom,  President,  mechanism  of  law, 

i.  193  ;  love  identified  with  desire,  ii. 
221 ;  perfect  love,  ii.  417. 

Basilides,  i.  78. 

Basil,  three  modes  of  being  in  the  Trin¬ 
ity,  i.  327. 

Baur,  Apocalypse  gives  names  of  Jehovah 
to  Christ,  i.  306. 

Baxter,  Richard,  disputation,  i.  293. 

Beautiful,  the,  in  Christian  civilization, 
ii-  433- 

Beecher,  H.  W.,  justice  excluded  from 
and  antagonistic  to  love,  ii.  307. 

Beginning  of  moral  character,  ii.  109. 

Belief,  spontaneous,  knowledge  of  God 
begins  in,  i.  45,  47  ;  presupposes  God’s 
action  revealing  himself,  i.  47  ;  defined, 
verified,  developed  by  rational  investi¬ 
gation,  i.  48  ;  is  real  knowledge,  i.  57- 

Bellows,  Rev.  Dr.,  monotheism,  i.  361 ; 
Unitarianism,  i.  375,  391  f. 

Benevolence,  regulated  in  righteousness, 

ii.  286-309  ;  error  that  the  law  requires 
justice  but  not  benevolence,  ii.  307, 
369-376  ;  is  one  aspect  of  love,  ii.  300  ; 
to  self,  ii.  427. 

Bengel,  i.  40. 

Bentham,  utilitarianism,  ii.  1 5 1 ,  165, 168  ; 
government  creating  and  conferring 
rights,  ii.  533. 

Bernard,  on  Abelard,  i.  10. 


Bethlehem  of  the  universe,  i.  415. 

Beza,  Theodore,  antinomy  of  God’s  jus¬ 
tice  and  grace,  ii.  308. 

Bible,  literalistic  interpretation  and  dis¬ 
integration  into  texts,  i.  10;  double 
sense,  i.  12;  allegorical  interpretation, 
i.  98  ;  not  the  only  revelation  of  God, 
i.  98;  misconception  that  it  consists 
solely  of  verbal  messages  dictated  to 
prophets,  i.  97;  is  the  record  of  God’s 
historical  action  redeeming  men  from 
sin  and  developing  his  kingdom,  i.  12, 
92,  98 ;  error  that  it  is  a  book  of  sen¬ 
tences,  every  one  dictated  infallibly  by 
God  a  final  revelation  for  all  time,  i.  10  ; 
objections  founded  on  this,  i.  92-95  ; 
tends  to  rationalism,  i.  95 ;  tends  to 
stop  in  the  words,  i.  97 ;  also  to  alle¬ 
gorizing,  i.  98;  the  true  conception, 
i.  98 ;  includes  prophecy  as  part  of 
God’s  historical  action,  i.  100;  reason¬ 
ableness,  i.  1 01  ;  revelations  occasioned 
by  special  emergencies,  i.  102 ;  the- 
ophanies,  i.  103;  revelation  adapted 
to  and  received  within  the  limitations  of 
the  time,  i.  104;  unity  and  continuity 
of  revelation  in  God’s  historical  action, 
i.  1 04- 1 07;  Old  Testament  a  history 
not  primarily  of  the  political  affairs  of 
Israel,  but  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
germinal  within  it,  i.  106  ;  influence  of 
the  Bible  in  history,  i.  108;  rooted 
in  history,  i.  108;  contrast  with  the 
Koran,  i.  108;  God’s  revelation  by 
historical  action  continued  in  the  Holy 
Spirit,  i.  109-113. 

Biedermann,  i.  117;  on  eternity,  i.  124. 

Bi-polar  truths,  i.  87. 

Blackstone,  sanction  of  the  law.  ii.  442; 
conscientious  disobedience  to  civil  gov¬ 
ernment,  ii.  551. 

Blessing  or  curse  from  God  carries  in  it 
all  the  powers  of  the  universe,  ii.  39 ; 
the  everlasting  arms,  ii.  41,  489. 

Boetius,  archetypal  ideal,  i.  130;  defini¬ 
tion  of  person,  i.  329. 

Bondage  in  sin,  ii.  129,  208. 

Bossuet,  hell  is  the  sin  itself,  ii.  476. 

Bowne,  Prof.,  i.  259. 

Bradford,  John,  “  there  goes  John  Brad¬ 
ford,”  i.  242. 

Bradwardine,  unconditional  decree  of 
God,  i.  554. 

Brain  and  mind,  i.  168. 

Brook  farm,  ii.  365. 

Brooks,  Phillips,  i.  6. 


INDEX 


557 


Brotherhood  of  man,  ii.  356. 

Browning,  immanence  of  God,  i.  112, 
1 1 3  ;  false  ideas  of  election  and  repro¬ 
bation,  ii.  15  ;  Roman  virtus,  ii.  226; 
belief  in  progress,  i.  231  ;  “  Pippa 
Passes,”  i.  251;  must  be  a  hell,  ii. 
4  71- 

- ,  Mrs.,  false  love  identical  with  de¬ 
sire,  ii.  222;  humanitarianism,  ii.  348. 

Brunetiere,  i.  68. 

Bryant,  victory  of  truth,  i.  226. 

Buddaeus,  person  of  Christ,  i.  401. 

Buddhism,  ii.  382  ;  individuation,  ii.  204; 
moral  teaching  and  pessimism,  i.  268- 
271  ;  fallacy  of  objection  from  its  im¬ 
mense  number  of  adherents,  i.  271  f. ; 
its  rules  for  all  action  like  the  rabbini¬ 
cal,  ii.  27S  ;  the  popular  religion,  i.  272. 

Buffon,  genius,  ii.  103. 

Bulwer,  genius,  ii.  103. 

Bunsen,  Hedonism,  ii.  159. 

Bunyan,  pillars  in  God’s  house,  i.  243. 

Burgon,  Canon,  inspiration,  i.  92. 

Burke,  Edmund,  i.  22. 

Burns,  Robert,  ii.  546. 

Bushnell,  mystery,  i.  365;  Trinity,  i. 
406. 

Business,  Christian  conception  of,  ii.  386  ; 
criteria  of  legitimate,  ii.  396  ;  religion 
penetrating  and  controlling  all  busi¬ 
ness,  ii.  346,  397,  432  ;  types  of  char¬ 
acter  developed,  ii.  398 ;  basis  of  politi¬ 
cal  economy  in  ethics,  ii.  401;  basis 
for  the  solution  of  economical  prob¬ 
lems,  ii.  402;  civilization  in  which  all 
business  is  Christian  service,  ii.  404; 
control  by  government,  ii.  403.  See 
Secular  and  Service. 

Butler,  Bishop,  ethics  developed  from 
the  formal  principle  of  the  law,  ii.  145 ; 
love  of  love,  ii.  171  ;  punishment 
through  the  constitution  of  the  uni¬ 
verse,  ii.  493. 

Byron,  if  God  has  wants,  i.  200;  pessi¬ 
mism,  i.  249,  264;  self-torment  of  sin¬ 
ners,  ii.  478. 

CAESAR  and  the  Christ,  i.  396,  482,  ii.  378. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  social  contract,  ii.  531. 

Calvin,  anthropomorphic  expressions  in 
the  Bible,  i.  41 ;  God  one  in  essence, 
i.  323;  charged  with  Arianism,  i.  328; 
the  word  person  in  the  Trinity,  i.  330, 
33T>  333 ?  predestination,  i.  571;  un¬ 
pardonable  sin,  ii.  450;  knowledge  and 
law  rest  on  God,  i.  147;  Trinity,  i.404. 


Candor,  not  indifference,  ii.  105 ;  love  of 
truth  before  it  is  ascertained,  ii.  289. 

Carlyle,  pessimistic  view  of  the  universe, 

i.  264;  submitting  to  necessity,  i.  543; 
Hedonism,  ii.  159;  self-sufficiency,  ii. 
206;  self-denial,  ii.  227;  Socrates, 

ii.  344. 

Carnal  man,  ii.  207. 

Chalmers,  love  identified  with  desire, 
ii.  221. 

Channing,  Rev.  Dr.  W.  E.,  religious 
books,  i.  32;  tendencies  of  Unitarian- 
ism,  i.  390  ;  retributive  justice,  ii.  461. 

Character,  confirmed  in  love,  i.  221. 

Chinese  classics,  knowledge  of  God  in, 

i.  46;  ii.  356. 

Choate,  Rufus,  glittering  generalities, 

ii.  545. 

Christ,  revelation  of  God  in,  reasonable 
and  antecedently  probable,  i.  63,  343, 
410  f.,  422;  ii.  373,  493;  biblical  pre¬ 
sentation  of  the  revelation  of  God  in, 
i.  294-340;  the  Son  of  Man,  i.  298; 
pre-existence  and  humiliation,  i.  298  f., 
344;  God  in  Christ,  i.  299-320;  names 
and  titles  of  God  ascribed  to  him, 
i.  299 ;  works  distinctive  of  God,  i. 
300;  his  own  claim,  i.  300  f.;  creating 
the  world,  i.  302  f. ;  redemption  of  man 
from  sin,  i.  304;  resurrection  and  as¬ 
cension,  i.  305  ;  worship  offered  to  him 
as  God,  i.  306  f. ;  the  Old  Testament 
the  history  of  God’s  development  of  his 
germinal  kingdom  preparatory  to  the 
great  epoch  of  its  development  in  the 
Messiah  who  was  to  come,  i.  30S-31S, 
410  f. ;  God  in  Christ  the  only  adequate 
explanation  of  Christ’s  relation  to  his¬ 
tory  before  and  after  his  coming,  i.  318  ; 
incidental  evidence,  i.  319;  person  of 
Christ,  i.  398-405  ;  the  revealer  of  God, 
i.  408-431 ;  personality  of  God  the  same 
in  kind  with  that  of  man,  i.  41 1  f. ;  the 
same  with  that  of  rational  persons  in 
all  worlds,  i.  4x2  f. ;  vision  of  God  in 
Christ  glorified,  “face  to  face,”  i.  412- 
420;  reveals  the  character  of  God  as 
Love,  i.  422-425;  self-renouncing,  i. 
423;  disinterested,  i.  423;  energizing, 
i.  424;  good-will  regulated  in  righteous¬ 
ness,  i.  424;  reveals  God’s  law,  i.  425: 
atoning  significance,  i.  194,  426;  ii.  345, 
373-376;  reveals  God’s  end  in  creation 
and  evolution  of  the  universe,  i.  429 ; 
Christ  the  revealer  and  the  revealed, 
i.  430;  himself  the  subject  of  his  own 


558 


INDEX 


teaching,  i.  430 ;  God  in  Christ  the 
reconciler  of  man  to  God,  i.  431-434 ; 
Redeemer,  i.  431;  Mediator,  i.  433; 
object  of  the  trust  which  is  the  con¬ 
dition  of  justification,  i.  434;  the  re- 
vealer  of  man,  i.  434-440;  dignity  and 
worth  of  man,  i.  434;  highest  possi¬ 
bilities  of  human  society  in  the  king¬ 
dom  of  God,  i.  436;  man’s  sinfulness 
revealed,  i.  438;  normal  condition  of 
union  with  God  in  trust,  i.  438  ;  ideal 
of  humanity,  i.  439  ;  uniqueness  as  the 
ideal  man,  i.  440-462;  presents  hu¬ 
manity  in  its  essential  elements,  i.  440- 
443;  in  its  completeness  and  harmony, 
i.  443-44S;  in  its  moral  and  spiritual 
perfection,  i.  44S-450  ;  these  character¬ 
istics  distinguishing  him  from  other 
men  make  him  intelligible  and  acces¬ 
sible  to  all  men,  i.  450-457;  analogy  of 
a  great  genius,  i.  450 ;  reveals  the  worth 
of  man  as  man,  i.  450;  contrasted  with 
other  religions,  i.  451;  consecrated 
human  life,  i.  452  ;  reveals  man’s  im¬ 
perfection  and  sin,  i.  454;  and  his 
access  to  God  for  deliverance,  i.  454  ; 
testimonies,  i.  455-457  ;  confirmation 
of  the  gospel  narrative,  i.  457;  further 
confirmed  by  his  historical  influence, 

i.  458-462. 

Christian  ethics,  ii.  1 75—192  ;  law  of  love 
the  principle  underlying  all  duties 
vitalizing  essence  of  right  character, 

ii.  175  ;  love  manifested  in  acts  of 
trust  and  service,  ii.  176,  178;  insep¬ 
arable  union  of  true  love  to  God  and 
to  man,  ii.  176  ;  man’s  love  the  same 
in  kind  with  God’s  love,  ii.  178;  ob¬ 
ject  of  love  persons,  not  anything  to 
be  acquired,  possessed,  and  used,  ii. 
178;  heathen  ethics  taught  by  Chris¬ 
tians,  ii.  180;  takes  up  all  that  is  true 
in  every  ethical  theory,  ii.  182;  is  be¬ 
nevolence  exercised  in  righteousness, 
ii.  185  ;  points  of  distinction  from 
other  theories,  ii.  187;  concrete  not 
abstract,  ii.  187;  various  forms  of  stat¬ 
ing  the  object  of  Christian  love,  ii.  189  ; 
Christ’s  statement  the  best  philosophi¬ 
cally  and  practically,  ii.  191;  why  not 
reveal  modern  discoveries  and  inven¬ 
tions,  ii.  364. 

Christian  Spectator,  hedonistic  ethics, 
ii.  161. 

Chubb,  Thomas,  sin  necessary,  i.  239; 
righteousness  of  God,  i.  227. 


Church,  Christian,  one  body  in  Christ, 

i.  346;  ii.  258;  a  divine  institution,  ii. 
528. 

Cicero,  the  perfect  man,  i.  458;  common 
element  of  all  virtues,  ii.  144  ;  Epicu¬ 
reanism,  ii.  155  ;  sensual  pleasure,  ii. 
496. 

Civil  government,  Christian  doctrine  of, 

ii.  5 1 9-5 5 1  ;  a  divine  institution  deriv¬ 
ing  its  authority  from  God,  ii.  519  ;  a 
necessary  demand  of  reason,  ii.  519; 
declared  in  the  biblical  revelation,  ii. 
520;  political  principles  in  Israel  com¬ 
pared  with  those  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
ii.  521  ;  confirmed  by  investigations  in 
the  science  of  religion,  ii.  522  ;  author¬ 
ity  to  govern  given  by  God  to  the  peo¬ 
ple,  ii.  524  ;  organized  government  by 
rulers  with  the  consent  of  the  people, 
ii.  526 ;  three  divine  institutions,  ii. 
527;  Christian  theory  distinguished 
from  current  errors,  ii.  529;  divine 
right  of  kings,  ii.  529  ;  social  contract, 
ii.  529  ;  two  factors  in  harmony,  ii.  532  ; 
medieval  doctrine  that  government 
derives  its  authority  from  God  through 
the  church,  ii.  534 ;  authorized  by  the 
people  formally  or  informally,  ii.  535 ; 
function  of  government,  ii.  535-541; 
rulers  elected  to  govern,  ii.  535  ;  right 
to  take  the  property,  liberty,  or  life  of 
the  citizen  for  the  legitimate  ends  of 
government,  ii.  538  ;  rulers  bound  to 
recognize  the  higher  law  of  God,  ii.  540; 
separation  of  Church  and  State,  ii.  540; 
recognition  of  God  by  the  States  and 
the  general  government  of  the  U.  S.  A., 
ii.  541;  form  of  government,  ii.  541- 
545  ;  not  prescribed  in  the  Bible,  ii.  542 ; 
people’s  right  to  modify  it,  ii.  542  ; 
aim  to  seek  the  wisest,  best,  and  ablest 
to  rule,  ii.  543  ;  changes  determined  by 
the  development  of  the  people  and  the 
character  of  the  government  at  the  time, 
ii.  543;  right  of  revolution,  ii.  544; 
evolution  not  revolution,  ii.  545  ;  rights 
of  man,  ii.  545-551  ;  when  obedience  to 
human  law  is  disobedience  to  God,  ii. 
550. 

Civilization,  Christian,  ii.  404;  realizes 
the  true,  right,  perfect,  and  good  in 
harmony  in  the  religious  life;  ii.  433- 
441  ;  evils  of  isolating  them,  ii.  435; 
attainable,  ii.  404;  the  beautiful  in  it, 
ii-  433>  44°- 

Clarke,  James  Freeman,  i.  11. 


INDEX 


559 


Clement  of  Alexandria,  music  of  the 
spheres,  i.  91  ;  conditional  election,  ii. 
12  ;  the  heathen,  ii.  484  ;  God  just  in 
benevolence  and  benevolent  in  justice, 
ii.  516. 

Clifford,  Prof.,  religion  consists  in  observ¬ 
ing  rites,  i.  156  ;  mind-stuff,  i.  168. 

Clodd,  evolution  of  genius  from  gas, 

i.  168. 

Clough,  self-sufficiency,  ii.  207. 

Coleridge,  the  Trinity,  i.  397  ;  complaint 
of  the  unequal  distribution  of  good,  ii. 
245  ;  memory,  ii.  490. 

Colombo,  Bishop  of,  Buddhist  multiplica¬ 
tion  of  rules,  ii.  279. 

Colossal  ignorance,  i.  175. 

Communism  and  Socialism,  tend  to  the 
degeneracy  of  men,  ii.  229,  420. 

Competition  inevitable,  ii.  25,  422 ;  and 
combination,  ii.  402. 

Complacency,  an  aspect  of  righteousness, 

ii.  299. 

Comte,  his  positivism,  i.  5  ;  rejected  by 
science,  i.  166;  monotheism,  i.  361; 
Malebranche,  i.  520  ;  human  rights,  ii. 
356- 

Confederacy  of  mankind,  ii.  259,  528. 

Confirmation  of  character,  i.  131  ;  ii.  450, 
473,  482. 

Conscience,  ii.  122,  160,  460-465  ;  de¬ 
velopment  and  education,  ii.  276; 
methods,  ii.  277;  necessity,  ii.  277; 
evils  of  constructing  rules  for  all  action 
hedge  about  the  law,  ii.  278  ;  develop¬ 
ment  of  moral  discernment  essential  in 
progress,  ii.  281  ;  rectitude  relative  and 
absolute,  ii.  282  ;  demands  the  punish¬ 
ment  of  for  sin,  i.  226  f.  conscientious 
disobedience  to  human  law,  ii.  550 ; 
light  of  eternal  reason,  ii.  339. 

Consciousness,  Christian,  i.  53  f.,  55  f. 

Consecration  of  human  life  by  Christ, 
i.  452. 

Constable,  remorse,  ii.  494 ;  punishment 
only  for  the  sins  of  this  life,  ii.  500. 

Constitution  and  history  of  man,  God  re¬ 
vealed  in,  i.  52,  520. 

Continuity  of  character,  ii.  473  ;  of  reli¬ 
gious  thought,  i.  22 ;  exemplified  in 
history,  i.  25. 

Contract  Social,  ii.  529. 

Conway,  M.  C.,  ii.  477. 

Co-operation  and  individuation,  ii.  253- 
260,  402. 

Corporations,  necessity  of,  ii.  257,  403. 

Cosmological  Argument,  i.  49. 


Cousin,  desire,  ii.  219. 

Covenant  of  God  with  Israel,  i.  309;  ii. 
262,  267. 

Cowley,  the  eternal  Now,  i.  126. 

Cowper,  immanence  of  God,  i.  90. 

Cranes  of  Ibycus,  ii.  122. 

Creation  of  the  universe,  i.  463-518; 
definition,  i.  463  f.  evolution  demands 
it,  i.  465 ;  cosmogony  in  Genesis,  its 
relation  to  ethnic  myths  and  legends, 
i.  466 ;  great  truths  for  all  time  in 
Gen.  i.-iii.,  whatever  the  form  in  which 
it  is  expressed,  i.  467-484 ;  speculative 
objections,  i.  484-490. 

Creeds,  their  legitimate  use,  i.  6. 

Culture  substituted  for  virtue,  ii.  64-66; 
in  Christian  civilization,  ii.  433-441. 

Cudworth,  Social  Contract,  ii.  530. 

Dante,  Light  eternal,  i.  350. 

Darwin,  Dr.  Erasmus,  natural  and  moral 
ability,  ii.  135. 

Davids,  Rhys,  Buddhist  Nirvana  and 
Karma,  i.  267,  272. 

Davis,  Prof.  J.  P.,  cuneiform  inscription 
of  the  Babylonish  tradition  of  the  flood, 

i.  467. 

- ,  Dr.  Charles  H.  S.,  the  Egyptian 

Book  of  the  Dead,  i.  55. 

Day,  President,  natural  and  moral  ability, 

ii.  134. 

Dead  in  sin,  ii.  213,  472. 

Decalogue,  i.  310,  ii.  341,  basis  of  Je¬ 
hovah’s  covenant  with  Israel  as  an 
organized  theocratic  state,  ii.  262-269. 

Depravity,  in  what  sense  it  may  be  said 
to  be  total,  ii.  204. 

De  Quincey,  revival  of  memory,  ii.  490. 

Derzhavin,  i.  76,  282. 

Descartes,  mathematics  created  by  an  act 
of  God’s  will,  i.  147. 

Desire  distinguished  from  Christian  love, 
ii.  81,  219. 

De  Tocqueville,  i.  28. 

Development  of  character,  i.  238  f ;  ii.  1 12— 
154;  by  voluntary  action,  ii.  112;  su¬ 
preme  choice  strengthened,  ii.  112; 
larger  comprehension  of  its  significance, 
ii.  1 12;  protensive  influence,  ii.  1155 
reacts  on  the  constitutional  motives,  ii. 
1 16  ;  a  person  determines  the  sources  of 
his  enjoyment  and  the  influence  of  his 
environment,  ii.  11 7;  issues  in  spon¬ 
taneity,  ii.  123;  ultimately  confirmed, 
ii.  131  ;  continued  in  the  life  eternal, 
ii.  132,  24S. 


560 


INDEX 


Devils,  computations  as  to  their  number, 

i.  9. 

Devonshire,  Earl  of,  epitaph,  ii.  246. 

De  Wette  on  Jesus  Christ,  i.  456. 

Diderot,  pessimism,  i.  274;  hedonism,  ii. 

1 59- 

Dilemma  proposed  by  the  atheist,  its 
solution,  i.  210. 

Diman,  Prof.,  law  created  by  will,  i.  534. 

Diodorus  Siculus,  laws  given  by  God,  ii. 
523- 

Discipline  distinguished  from  punish¬ 
ment,  ii.  447  ;  not  excluded  from  pun¬ 
ishment,  ii.  448. 

Discontinuity  of  religious  thought,  i.  24. 

Disinterested  love,  i.  207  ;  ii.  248-253  ; 
objection  that  love  insures  the  highest 
blessedness,  ii.  248  ;  love  in  its  essence 
self-renouncing,  ii.  248  ;  objection  rests 
on  hedonism,  ii.  249 ;  love  not  exclu¬ 
sive  of  altruism,  includes  love  to  self 
equally  with  love  to  the  neighbor,  ii. 
250  ;  objection  assumes  that  law  is  an 
enactment  of  arbitrary  will,  ii.  251  ; 
implies  the  subversion  of  the  moral 
system,  ii.  251  :  appealed  to  as  a  mo¬ 
tive  to  Christian  love,  ii.  252. 

Distribution  of  duties  to  men,  ii.  384-441. 

Divine  right  of  kings,  ii.  529. 

Doederlein,  J.  C.,  controversies  on  the 
Trinity,  i.  295. 

Dogmatism  excluded  from  theology,  i.  4. 

Domestic  and  social  relations,  Christian 
service  in,  ii.  406 ;  exemplified  by  J esus, 
i-  443-446  5  ii-  4 °7- 

Dorner,  modes  of  being  in  the  Trinity,  i. 
327;  oriental  religions  and  occidental, 
i.  396;  Bethlehem  of  the  universe,  i. 

415. 

Dort,  Synod  of,  election  and  reprobation 
of  infants,  ii.  14. 

Doubts,  proper  treatment  of,  i.  40. 

Drummond,  natural  and  spiritual,  70  ; 
parasitism,  ii.  366. 

Du  Bois,  Prof.,  practical  significance  of 
truth,  analogy  of  the  physical  and  the 
spiritual,  ii.  106. 

Duns  Scotus,  law  created  by  arbitrary 
will,  i.  146,  147,  171,  534,  552. 

Duty,  rules  of,  ii.  262-271  ;  application  of 
the  law  of  love,  ii.  262 ;  the  Ten  Com¬ 
mandments,  ii.  262-269  ;  other  rules  in 
the  Bible,  ii.  269  ;  rules  established  by 
human  experience  and  observation,  ii. 
270  ;  duty  determined  by  private  judg¬ 
ment,  ii.  271  ;  Golden  Rule,  ii.  273. 


Duties  to  God,  ii.  335-339  ;  truthfulness 
to  God,  ii.  335  ;  justice  toward  God,  ii. 
338 ;  complacency,  ii.  338 ;  good-will, 
ii.  338. 

Duties  to  man  in  his  relation  to  God,  ii. 
339-383  ;  true  love  to  man  vitalized  by 
love  to  God,  and  duty  to  man  deter¬ 
mined  by  man’s  relation  to  God,  ii. 
339  ;  implied  in  the  essential  idea  of 
moral  law,  ii.  339 ;  analogy  with  sci¬ 
ence,  ii.  340  ;  biblical  teaching,  ii.  341  ; 
no  true  love  to  God  which  does  not 
issue  in  love  to  man,  ii.  342  ;  unity  of 
love  to  God  and  to  man,  ii.  347  ;  essen¬ 
tial  to  true  human  progress,  ii.  349  ; 
unity  and  rights  of  men,  ii.  349;  this 
law  of  progress  verified  historically,  ii. 
352  ;  principles  quickening  and  regu¬ 
lating  progress  depend  on  man’s  rela¬ 
tion  to  God,  ii.  355  ;  revealed  in  the 
Christian  revelation,  ii.  357;  the  same 
true  of  the  methods  and  aims  of  human 
progress,  ii.  361 ;  measure  of  service 
due  to  mankind,  ii.  369  ;  a  universal 
religion  necessary,  ii.  376. 

Duties  to  the  good  and  to  the  bad,  ii. 
415;  peculiar  duties  to  Christians,  ii. 
415  ;  love  to  the  wicked  manifested  in 
peculiar  duties,  ii.  416  ;  displacency  to¬ 
ward  sinners,  ii.  416. 

Duties  to  self,  ii.  418  ,  biblical  teaching, 
ii.  418  ;  love  not  exclusive  altruism,  ii. 
24-28,  401,  418-423;  does  not  extin¬ 
guish,  but  normally  develops  natural 
affections  and  desires,  ii.  419;  this  is 
essential  in  the  education  and  develop¬ 
ment  of  man,  ii.  420;  exemplified  in 
missions  to  inferior  races,  ii.  423 ;  and 
in  the  education  of  children,  ii.  423  ; 
essential  to  the  wellbeing  of  man  in 
universal  love,  ii.  424  ;  trust  and  service 
to  self,  ii.  426. 

Ecce  Homo,  i.  457. 

Edersheim,  Rabbinism,  i.  7;  Messianic 
texts  in  the  Old  Testament,  i.  314,  318. 

Edwards,  moral  character  in  the  will,  ii. 
62,  100;  missionary  to  Indians,  ii.  119; 
natural  and  moral  ability,  ii.  137;  love 
to  universal  being,  ii.  190;  punishment 
only  for  sins  in  this  life,  ii.  501 ;  God’s 
just  rights,  ii.  338. 

-  the  younger,  utilitarianism,  ii.  171. 

Egoism  and  altruism,  complemental,  not 
antagonistic,  ii.  24-28,  401,  418-423; 
communism  and  socialism  would  issue 


INDEX 


561 


in  perpetual  babyhood,  ii.  25,  26;  com¬ 
petition  alone  makes  men  Ishmaels,  ii. 
25  ;  man  educated  and  developed  by 
struggle  to  know  and  command  the 
powers  of  nature,  ii.  25  ;  obeying  the 
law  of  love,  all  things  work  for  the  per¬ 
son’s  good,  disobeying  it  in  selfishness 
all  things  work  for  him  evil,  ii.  27  ; 
physical  analogies,  ii.  26;  free  will,  ii. 
28  ;  in  what  sense  God  is  a  consuming 
fire,  ii.  28. 

Egypt,  monotheism  the  esoteric  religion, 

i.  55. 

Election,  unconditional,  extreme  state¬ 
ment,  ii.  14;  excluded,  ii.  15;  God  does 
for  every  one  in  universal  good-will  all 
that  wisdom  and  righteousness  permit 
or  require,  i.  215,  232,  243-247;  its  true 
significance,  ii.  1-6;  God  seeks  men  be¬ 
fore  they  seek  God,  ii.  2 ;  regeneration 
by  the  Spirit,  ii.  5  ;  reasonableness  of 
the  doctrine  in  its  true  significance,  ii. 
6  ;  implied  in  God’s  providential  gov 
ernment,  ii.  6 ;  attested  by  Christian 
consciousness,  ii.  6;  recognizes  man’s 
dependence  on  God,  ii.  7;  recognizes 
free  will,  ii.  8;  elect  in  the  sense  of 
God’s  complacency  in  those  who  live 
the  life  of  love,  ii.  12;  recognizes  man's 
rights,  ii.  12;  false  theories  of  election, 

ii.  14  ;  objection  that  the  ideal  presented 
is  not  the  real,  ii.  17-31. 

Eliot,  George,  vileness  of  a  selfish  life, 
ii.  235;  Stradivarius,  ii.  300;  trust,  ii. 
325  ;  awe  of  the  divine  Nemesis,  ii.  506 ; 
loving  service,  ii.  245. 

Ellis.  Rev.  Dr.,  Unitarianism,  i.  374,  376, 
378. 

Elohim,  i.  473. 

Eloquence,  i.  37,  ii.  410. 

Emerson,  R.  YV.,  sin  necessary  in  the 
process  of  development,  i.  239;  pale 
negations  of  unitarianism.  i.  394;  hitch 
wagon  to  a  star,  ii.  44  ;  culture,  ii.  431; 
punishment  for  wrong-doing  inevitable, 
ii.  460. 

Emmons,  Rev.  Dr.,  God  creating  human 
volitions,  i.  555  ;  character  is  atomistic 
volitions,  ii.  101. 

End  to  be  realized  by  God  in  creation,  i. 
491-518;  three  biblical  forms  of  state¬ 
ment,  i.  591  ;  acts  out  his  Godhood,  i. 
493;  theological  statement,  i.  494-503; 
glory  of  God  defined,  i.  494  ;  essential 
and  declarative,  i.  495  ;  theophany, 
God  revealing  his  glory  to  Moses,  i. 

VOL.  II.  —  36. 


49S;  demanded  by  reason,  i.  499;  erro¬ 
neous  conceptions,  i.  500;  excludes 
favoritism,  i.  502  ;  order  of  the  universe 
primarily  rational,  i.  503  ;  God  glorifies 
himself  in  sinners  by  exercising  his 
perfections  toward  them,  i.  503-515  ; 
the  potter  and  the  clay,  i.  505  ;  glorify¬ 
ing  himself  in  Pharaoh,  i.  507  ;  the  sin 
of  sinners  the  occasion  of  God’s  treat¬ 
ing  them  in  perfect  good-will  regulated 
by  righteousness,  i.  508  ;  God’s  punish¬ 
ments  always  in  an  atmosphere  of  good¬ 
will,  i.  509;  man  glorifies  God  by  re¬ 
cognizing,  consenting  to,  and  declaring 
his  glory  in  the  life  of  love,  i.  515. 

Enthusiasm  for  humanity,  ii.  349. 

Environment,  its  influence  determined  by 
the  person,  ii.  117,  492. 

Epictetus,  fatherhood  of  God,  i.  193;  pru¬ 
dence  and  trust  in  God,  ii.  1S6. 

Epicureanism,  ii.  157  f. 

Equality  of  men,  in  what  sense  true,  ii. 

357- 

Erasmus,  medieval  scholasticism,  i.  9. 

Esther,  false  interpretation  of,  i.  12. 

Eternity  of  God,  i.  122 ;  eternal  Now, 

i.  126. 

Ethics,  presupposes  God  and  theology, 

ii.  142  ;  ethical  systems  founded  on  the 
formal  principle  of  the  law,  ii.  144  ; 
classification  of  theories  recognizing  a 
real  principle  of  the  law,  ii.  146  ;  errors 
common  to  three  theories  of  the  first 
class  of  the  latter  division,  ii.  148  ; 
errors  common  to  two  hedonistic  theo¬ 
ries,  ii.  150;  egoistic  hedonism  or  the 
self-love  theory,  ii.  153;  universalistic 
hedonism  or  utilitarianism,  ii.  165 ; 
theory  of  rectitude,  ii.  171 ;  second 
class,  Christian  ethics,  ii.  175.  See 
Christian  Ethics. 

Ethnic  religions,  i.  46,  55,  199,  475  5  ii* 

342,  344,  353,  356,  4^5- 

Everett,  Prof.  C.  C.,  unitarianism,  i.  379. 

Evolution,  the  continuous  revelation  of 
God  progressive  through  epochs,  realiz¬ 
ing  his  archetypal  ideal,  ii.  22-28  ;  de¬ 
mands  God  the  creator,  i.  73-77,  465  ; 
of  the  physical  and  of  the  personal, 
moral,  and  spiritual  peculiarities  distin¬ 
guishing  each,  ii.  22-28;  this  distinction 
overlooked  in  attempts  to  reconcile 
evolution  with  theism,  ii.  23  ;  evolution 
of  the  physical  system  involves  altruism 
as  well  as  egoism,  ii.  26 ;  of  the  moral 
system  involves  egoism  as  well  as  al- 


562 


INDEX 


truism,  ii.  27  ;  evolution  not  revolution, 

i.  40  ;  ii.  367  ;  proves  the  unique  great¬ 
ness  of  man,  i.  52,  74-76  ;  and  the  in¬ 
carnation,  i.  408-411. 

Ewald,  significance  of  the  history  of 
Israel,  i.  310;  ii.  268. 

Ewer,  Rev.  Dr.,  i.  11. 

Examiner,  Christian,  Unitarianism,  i. 
374,  378,  3SG  382- 

Experience,  God  known  in,  i.  15,  53-55. 

Fairbairn,  Rev.  Dr.,  fatherhood  of 
God,  i.  537. 

Faith,  Christian,  is  receptive  action,  ii. 
310,  312  ;  is  trust,  a  determination  of 
the  will,  ii.  311  ;  different  use  in  phil¬ 
osophy,  i.  45;  ii.  31 1 ;  presupposes 
belief,  ii.  311;  recognized  as  trust  in 
the  Bible,  ii.  312;  by  theologians,  ii. 
313  ;  right  character  begins  and  goes 
on  by  faith,  ii.  313;  analogy  of  organic 
life,  branch  and  vine,  ii.  313  ;  analogy 
of  mechanics,  ii.  314  ;  society  exists  by 
men’s  faith  in  one  another,  ii.  315; 
true  in  spiritual  life,  man  cnpax  divini , 

ii.  316  ;  the  sinner  restored  to  union 
with  God  and  to  fruitful  life  in  him,  ii. 
318,  439  ;  all  right  character  begins  in 
trust  in  God,  ii.  320  ;  faith  and  repent¬ 
ance,  ii.  322 ;  faith  a  manifestation  of 
love,  ii.  322  ;  faith  and  works,  ii.  314, 
326,  332  ;  justification  by  faith  is  justi¬ 
fication  by  right  character,  ii.  332  ;  see¬ 
ing  the  invisible,  i.  77  ;  incipient  love, 
ii.  327  ;  actus  adhaesionis,  ii.  331. 

Family,  state,  church,  the  three  divine 
institutions,  ii.  527. 

Fatherhood  of  God,  in  the  Old  Testament, 
i.  359,  509;  one-sided  conception  of, 
depreciating  God’s  law  and  sovereignty, 
i.  193  f.,  537  ;  issues  in  the  conception 
of  patriarchal  government,  despotic  rule 
of  one,  i.  539  ;  no  basis  for  atonement, 
i.  540;  God  exercises  his  almighty  will 
in  strict  accord  with  the  principles, 
laws  and  ideals  eternal  in  him  as  the 
absolute  Reason,  i.  527-542. 

Feeling  an  attribute  of  God,  as  Spirit, 
i.  196-209  ;  an  essential  attribute  of  a 
personal  spirit,  i.  196  ;  essentially  the 
same  in  kind  with  the  spiritual  suscep¬ 
tibilities  of  the  ideally  perfect  man,  i. 
197  ;  God  blessed  in  himself,  i.  197  f. ; 
responsive  to  the  action  of  his  rational 
creatures,  i.  198;  free  from  limitations 
incident  to  finiteness,  i.  199  ;  has  no 


wants,  i.  199  f. ;  God’s  chief  end  not  his 
own  happiness,  i.  200  f.;  does  not  suffer, 
i.  201  f. ;  no  fluctuation  or  passionate¬ 
ness,  i.  203 ;  distinguish  feeling  from 
love  required  by  the  law,  i.  205  f. ;  God’s 
love  disinterested,  i.  207 ;  revealed  in 
Christ,  i.  207  f. ;  feeling  as  related  to 
character,  ii.  66  ;  absorbed  in  action,  i. 
202. 

Ferrier,  Prof.  J.  F.,  moral  nature  and 
character  confounded,  ii.  no. 

Feuerbach,  religion  the  sacrifice  of  man 
to  God,  ii.  342. 

Fichte,  J.  G.,  create  God,  i.  384  ;  religion 
not  intended  to  influence  life,  ii.  65  ; 
conscience,  ii.  247. 

Fisher,  Prof.  G.  P.,  ii.  357. 

Fiske,  John,  the  soul  a  spiritual  sub¬ 
stance,  i.  52  ;  brain  and  mind,  i.  169. 

Flammantia  moenia  mundi ,  i.  135. 

Forbes,  Prof,  John,  predestination,  i. 
570;  resisting  God’s  spirit,  217. 

Foreknowledge,  God’s,  of  acts  of  free 
agents,  i.  136-145  ;  God’s  uncondi¬ 
tional  decree  cannot  be  inferred  from 
foreknowledge,  i.  145. 

Formal  principle  of  the  law,  ii.  141. 

Freedom  of  will,  not  in  the  power  of  con¬ 
trary  choice,  ii.  137  ;  of  God’s  will,  i. 
187  f.  ;  freedom  moral,  physical,  real, 
formal,  ii.  54,  124 ;  real  freedom,  ii.  56, 
125;  impossible  in  selfishness,  ii.  129. 

Friesland  chief,  ii.  120. 

Froebel,  i.  62. 

P'rothingham,  O.  B.,  displacency  towards 
sinners,  ii.  418. 

Froude,  on  theology,  i.  4. 

Fuller,  Thomas,  gaining  by  giving,  ii.  247. 

Fundamental  reality,  i.  72-78,  176,  419. 

Fursey,  that  which  you  did  not  kindle 
shall  not  burn  you,  ii.  477. 

Galileo’s  telescope,  i.  98;  facts  the 
moral  alphabet  of  the  book  of  nature, 
i.  496. 

Gebhardt,  Doctrine  of  the  Apocalypse, 
i.  305. 

Genesis,  chap.  i.  —  iii.,  recording  truths 
for  all  time,  whatever  the  form,  i.  467- 
484;  question  as  to  its  harmony  with 
physical  science,  i.  468;  truths  respect¬ 
ing  the  physical  system,  i.  470  f. ;  truths 
respecting  God,  i.  472  f. ;  truths  respect¬ 
ing  man,  i.  477  f.  ;  the  beginning  of  re¬ 
demption,  i.  4S1 ;  keynote  of  human 
history,  i.  482  ;  the  serpent  in  Semitic 


INDEX 


563 


belief,  the  incarnation  of  wickedness 
and  guile,  i.  481  ;  beginning  of  motion, 
i-  73- 

Genius  not  exempt  from  moral  law,  ii.  394. 

Gess,  Christ  in  the  Old  Testament,  i.  314. 

Gieseler,  one  only  God  in  the  Trinity,  i. 

323>  337- _ 

Gladstone,  i.  29,  ii.  528. 

Glory  of  God,  i.  492  ;  defined,  i.  494  ; 
man  glorifying  God,  i.  515. 

Goethe,  i.  356,  405  ;  on  Jesus  Christ,  i. 
455;  renunciation,  ii.  244. 

Golden  Rule,  ii.  273. 

Goltz,  God  in  Christ,  i.  320 ;  the  histori¬ 
cal  personality  of  Christ  developed  the 
doctrine  of  his  divinity,  i.  340  ;  his  own 
Christian  experience  centring  on  Christ, 
i.  369. 

Government  of  God,  generic,  i.  519-547; 
providential  and  moral,  i.  522  ;  two  as¬ 
pects  of  every  divine  act,  i.  522;  provi¬ 
dential  subordinate  to  moral,  i.  523; 
God’s  right  to  sovereignty,  i.  524 ;  in 
the  fact  that  he  is  the  absolute  Spirit, 
i.  525  ;  God’s  just  rights,  i.  529;  God’s 
sovereignty  absolute,  i.  529 ;  in  all  its 
exercise  regulated  by  the  law  of  eternal 
reason,  i.  530;  this  does  not  limit  him, 
i.  530  ;  in  unity  according  with  rational 
truth  and  law  for  the  progressive  real¬ 
ization  in  the  finite  of  the  archetypal 
idea  of  eternal  Reason,  i.  532  ;  not  the 
sovereignty  of  arbitrary  will,  i.  533 ; 
this  would  imply  despotism  instead  of 
government  under  law,  i.  534 ;  in¬ 
stances  of  this  error  in  theology,  i.  534; 
errors  leading  to  this  error,  i.  535  ;  errors 
doctrinal  and  practical  flowing  from  it, 

i.  536  ;  present  reaction  from  this  error 
leading  to  depreciating  or  denying  God’s 
sovereignty  under  law,  i.  537;  ground 
of  submission  to  God’s  will,  i.  542. 

Government,  human,  Christian  theory  of, 

ii.  5 1 9-5 51  ;  control  of  business,  ii.  403. 
See  Civil  Government. 

Grace,  prevenient,  ii.  318. 

Greek  philosophy  and  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  i.  357  f. 

Green,  Prof.  W.  H.,  Jehovah  and  Elohim 
in  Gen.  i.  -iii.,  ii.  264. 

Gregory  of  Nazianzen,  consecration  of 
human  life  by  Christ,  i.  433. 

Gregory  the  Great,  immanence  of  God,  i. 
^  89- 

Ground,  Rev.  W.  D.,  ethics  developed  from 
the  formal  principle  of  the  law,  ii.  145. 


Haeckel,  caricature  of  the  theistic  law 
of  progress,  i.  157;  God  cannot  be 
free;  i.  187 ;  evolution  disproves  crea¬ 
tion,  i.  465 ;  account  of  creation  in 
Genesis,  i.  472. 

Hale,  E.  E.,  i.  23. 

flail,  Bp.,  gaining  by  giving,  ii.  246. 

Hamerton,  God’s  love  excludes  law,  ii. 
47- 

Hamilton,  Sir  Wm.,  agnosticism,  ii.  4S5. 

Hardening  men’s  hearts  by  God,  i.  576. 

Hare,  Archdeacon,  feeling  of  God,  i.  197. 

Hartmann,  pessimism,  i.  252,  254  ;  three 
forms  of  illusion,  i.  263 ;  plan  for  uni¬ 
versal  suicide,  and  extinction  of  the 
universe,  i.  265  ;  the  world  process  a 
logical  process,  action  by  will  realizing 
it,  i.  262,  353  ;  justice  and  grace  con¬ 
sonant,  ii.  308. 

Hatch,  Rev.  Dr.  Edwin,  Greek  philoso¬ 
phy  and  Christian  theology,  i.  358. 

Hawthorne,  morbid  conscientiousness,  ii. 
109. 

Hazard,  R.  G.,  archetypal  ideal,  i.  130. 

Hedge,  Rev.  Dr.  Frederic  E.,  no  evil 
exists,  i.  240. 

Hedonism,  i.  170  ;  God’s  chief  end  his 
own  happiness,  ii.  154;  basis  of  athe¬ 
istic  objections,  i.  218. 

Hedonistic  ethics,  errors  common  to  both 
forms,  ii.  150;  egoistic  hedonism,  i. 
170,  ii.  153  ;  utilitarianism,  ii.  165  ;  no 
conscience  or  sense  of  duty,  ii.  150,  165, 
170. 

Hegel,  Trinity,  i.  352  ;  idea  of  God  the 
foundation  of  a  people,  ii.  522  ;  sand¬ 
bank  of  time,  i.  286;  religion,  ii.  415. 

Helvetius,  Hedonism,  ii.  159. 

Hennel,  denying  sinlessness  of  Jesus,  i. 
448. 

Herbert,  George,  i.  96  ;  ii.  253. 

Highest  coming  down  to  the  lowest  to 
lift  it  up,  i.  344,  429  ;  ii.  372.. 

Hilary,  perils  of  human  expression,  i.  332. 

Hindu  Maia,  i.  50. 

Hobbes,  Social  Contract,  ii.  530. 

Hodge,  Prof.  Charles,  distinctions  in  the 
Trinity,  i.  337  ;  faith  is  trust,  ii.  313. 

Holmes,  O.  W.,  caricature  of  a  clergy¬ 
man,  i.  32;  revival  of  memory,  ii.  491. 

Holy  Spirit,  God  in,  i.  320.  . 

Homer,  pessimism,  i.  250. 

Homoousios,  i.  435. 

Honor,  defined,  i.  495. 

Hooker,  Richard,  law,  i.  194;  person  of 
Christ,  i.  402. 


564 


INDEX 


Hopkins,  Samuel,  ii.  1 1 9 ;  person  of 
Christ,  i.  402. 

Horace,  faith  in  a  leader,  ii.  331 ;  ethics 
of  Stoics,  ii.  174. 

Houghton,  Lord,  Bible  and  Koran,  i. 
108. 

H  owe,  Julia  Ward,  i.  445. 

Humanitarianism,  godless,  ii.  348. 

Humboldt,  the  southern  cross,  i.  287. 

Hume,  hedonistic  ethics,  ii.  156. 

Humiliation  of  God  in  Christ,  i.  344. 

Huntington,  F.  D.,  i.  421. 

Huxley,  i.  5,  32,  33  ;  the  object  of  science, 

i.  165;  the  antinomies  and  mysteries 
of  science,  i.  275  ;  creation  of  a  new 
habit  of  thought,  ii.  424  ;  character  of 
a  man  created  by  the  Almighty,  i.  216  ; 
strangled  serpents,  i.  469. 

Ideal  and  real,  objection  that  the  ideal 
not  realized,  ii.  17;  the  ideal  funda¬ 
mentally  real  in  God  the  absolute 
Reason,  ii.  iS;  progressive  realization 
of  the  ideal  in  the  physical  system  and 
in  the  progress  of  man,  ii.  18,  19;  its 
fundamental  reality  assumed  in  the 
objection,  ii.  20  ;  in  close  analogy  with 
science,  ii.  20 ;  realization  of  the  ideal 
in  the  finite  necessarily  progressive, 
and  by  epochs,  ii.  22 ;  evolution  of 
the  physical  and  the  personal,  peculiari¬ 
ties  distinguishing  the  -evolution  of 
each,  ii.  22  ;  overlooked  in  attempts  to 
harmonize  evolution  with  theism,  ii. 
23  ;  man’s  knowledge  of  God  and  God’s 
revelation  of  himself  progressive,  ii.  23; 
objection  that  the  ideal  gives  the  law 
of  love,  the  real  the  law  of  selfish  com¬ 
petition,  ii.  24  ;  the  real  progressive 
toward  realizing  the  ideal,  both  in 
physical  evolution  and  in  human  de¬ 
velopment,  ii.  2S ;  the  biblical  repre¬ 
sentation,  ii.  30. 

Idolatry,  ii.  351. 

Imitation,  ii.  414. 

Immanence  of  God,  i.  78-92.  See  Trans¬ 
cendence. 

Immortality,  i.  74-77,  259;  ii.  508;  hope 
of,  stimulates  to  self-renouncing  love, 

ii.  252. 

Immutability  of  God,  i.  125. 

Imprecatory  psalms,  i.  513. 

Inalienable  rights,*  ii.  355,  546. 

Incarnation,  antecedently  probable,  i.  63, 
343,  410,  422;  ii.  374,  493;  the  central 
fact  in  human  history,  i.  344 ;  recog¬ 


nition  of  it  necessary  to  the  true  phil¬ 
osophy  of  history,  i.  344;  reveals  the 
universality  and  supremacy  of  the  law 
of  love,  i.  344  ;  highest  coming  down  to 
the  lowest  to  lift  it  iq:>,  i.  344,  429; 
likeness  of  God  and  man,  human  side 
of  God,  divine  side  of  man,  i.  345  ; 
God  in  Christ  the  same  as  revealed  in 
the  creation  and  evolution  of  the  uni¬ 
verse,  i.  345  ;  realizing  the  archetypal 
ideal,  i.  346;  unity  of  men  with  God 
and  with  one  another,  i.  346;  con¬ 
summation  of  the  revelation  of  God 
progressive  in  the  evolution  of  the 
world,  i.  411;  objection,  how  could 
God  be  acting  elsewhere  while  in  Christ, 

i.  421  ;  highest  plane  of  God’s  continu¬ 
ous  revelation,  i.  422  ;  if  man  had  not 
sinned,  i.  417;  miraculous  birth,  i.  344; 
analogous  revelation  in  other  worlds,  i. 
345,  412;  central  in  the  evolution  of 
the  universe,  i.  346. 

Individuation  and  co-operation,  ii.  253- 
26c ;  analogy  in  organic  life,  ii.  234 ; 
co-operation  of  nations,  churches,  and 
associations,  ii.  257  ;  co-ordination  of 
the  two  necessary  from  the  progress  of 
science  and  invention,  ii.  257;  co-opera¬ 
tion  of  Christian  churches,  ii.  258 ;  of 
nations,  ii.  258;  sin  as  individuation, 

ii.  204. 

Influence  of  God’s  redeeming  grace  on 
every  one  is  all  that  perfect  wisdom  and 
righteousness  regulating  perfect  and 
universal  good-will  require  and  permit, 
1.  142,  179;  human  influence  in  service 
designed  distinctively  to  originate  or 
develop  religious  character  and  life,  ii. 
408 ;  prayer,  Christian  nurture,  direct 
efforts  to  induce  individuals  to  come  to 
Christ  in  penitential  trust,  ii.  40S;  un¬ 
conscious  influence  of  character  and 
personality,  ii.  409  ;  importance  of  this, 
ii.  410  ;  eloquence,  ii.  410;  far-reaching, 
ii .  4 1 1 ;  sincerity,  ii.  412;  imitation  is 
weakness,  ii.  414. 

Inspiration,  verbal,  i.  92. 

Irenaeus,  disintegrating  the  Bible  into 
texts,  i.  10. 

Israel,  rejection  of,  ii.  3. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  on  Unitarianism, 
i.  374;  on  revolutions,  ii.  545. 

Jehovah,  the  Memorial  Name,  i.  309!.; 
incommunicable  name  for  which  Lord 
was  substituted,  i.  316;  Logos  or  Son 


INDEX 


565 


of  God  revealed  in  Jehovah,  i.  3ii-3iS) 
and  Elohim,  i.  498;  ii.  264. 

Jerome,  on  self-existence,  i.  118. 

Jevons,  abstract  rights,  ii.  533. 

John  the  Damascene,  three  modes  of  being 
in  the  Trinity,  i.  328. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  liked  a  good  hater,  ii. 
414. 

Jowett,  Christianity  fulfilment  of  all  re¬ 
ligions,  i.  63. 

Judaism,  ii.  352. 

Justice,  consent  of  the  will  to  the  law,  ii. 
295;  is  subjective  character,  ii.  296; 
is  one  aspect  of  love,  having  regard 
to  the  rights  of  all,  ii.  296;  consent 
of  the  will  to  the  authority  of  the 
law,  to  its  requirement  and  to  its  sanc¬ 
tion,  ii.  297. 

Kant,  cannot  attribute  free  will  to  God,  i. 
188  ;  on  the  basis  of  freedom  of  will,  ii. 
58;  his  thing  in  itself  as  related  to  free 
will,  ii.  59;  realizing  the  ideal,  i.  458; 
moral  character  in  the  will,  ii.  62 ;  spon¬ 
taneity  incompatible  with  free  will,  ii. 
126;  ethics  developed  from  the  formal 
principle  of  the  law,  ii.  145 ;  the  true 
ascetics,  ii.  228;  nature  and  rationality, 
i.  155;  law  not  created  by  will,  i.  535; 
the  Golden  Rule,  ii.  274. 

Karma  of  Buddhism,  i.  267  f. 

Keble,  i.  153  ;  true  ascetics,  ii.  228. 

Ken,  Bishop,  Adam’s  sin,  felix  culpa,  i. 
236. 

Kepler,  i.  57,  165,  197,  287. 

Keynote  of  the  philosophy  of  history,  i. 

344.  482- 

Keys,  power  of  the,  i.  7;  ii.  540. 
Khayyam,  Omar,  pessimism,  i.  250;  fatal¬ 
ism,  i.  555. 

Kidd,  religion  rests  on  the  ultra-rational 
or  supra-rational,  i.  61,  68,  170. 
Kilburn-Brown,  Helen  L.,  immanence  of 
God  in  nature,  i.  91. 

Kingdom  of  God  germinal  in  Israel,  i. 
106  ;  is  the  ideal  of  human  society,  i. 
99;  development  in  unity  and  con¬ 
tinuity,  i.  106-113. 

Kings,  divine  right  of,  origin,  ii.  529. 
Kingsley,  Canon,  Greek  philosophy  and 
Christianity,  i.  358;  recognizing  God,  i. 
546. 

Knight,  aspects  of  Theism,  i.  75. 
Knowledge,  God’s,  archetypal,  i.  128  ;  uni¬ 
versal,  i.  133;  perfect  as  knowledge,  i. 
148;  activity  in  knowing,  i.  132;  of 


himself,  i.  134;  of  the  possible,  i.  134; 
of  the  actual,  i.  135  ;  of  the  acts  of  free 
agents,  i.  136;  individualizing,  i.  148; 
human,  depends  on  the  existence  of 
God,  i.  49-69;  ii.  376. 

Kuenen,  Islam  cannot  be  the  universal 
religion,  i.  108;  Siddartha  Gautama, 

i.  270. 

Labor,  dignity  of,  ii.  365;  and  work,  ii. 
238;  and  capital,  ii.  402;  division  of, 

ii.  360. 

Lactantius,  on  self-existence,  i.  118. 

Landis,  punishment  only  for  sins  com¬ 
mitted  in  this  life,  ii.  500. 

Lange,  materialism,  ii.  153,  231. 

Lao-tse,  i.  46. 

Laplace,  Mecanique  Celeste,  i.  138. 

Law  of  God  not  created  by  will,  but  eter¬ 
nal  in  the  absolute  Reason,  i.  128-133, 
179,  183;  law  of  the  universe  arche¬ 
typal  in  God,  ii.  142;  laws  of  nature 
distinguished  from  factual  sequences,  i. 
154;  moral  law  eternal  in  God,  the  ab¬ 
solute  Reason,  i.  155;  essential  in  the 
constitution  of  the  universe,  i.  155 ; 
revealed  in  Christ  and  on  Calvary,  ii. 
142  ;  tendency  to  depreciate  law,  i.  193, 
537;  revealed  in  the  constitution  of 
man,  ii.  142;  is  the  law  of  love,  ii.  142, 
145  ;  founded  in  eternal  Reason,  ii.  146; 
in  the  spiritual  system  analogous  to  the 
law  of  gravitation  in  the  physical,  i. 
155;  God  obeys  law,  i.  537;  law  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  government,  i.  535;  a 
principle  comprehending  and  vitalizing 
all  specific  duties,  ii.  143;  law  of  love 
and  rules  of  duty,  ii.  261-285. 

Lecky,  on  Jesus,  i.  455;  future  punish¬ 
ment,  ii.  510;  historical  influence  of 
Christianity,  i.  460. 

Leibnitz,  providential  government,  i. 
561. 

Le  Jeune,  future  punishment,  11.  510. 

Lenormant,  ii.  353. 

Leopardi,  pessimism,  i.  250. 

Lessing,  rationalism,  i.  386. 

Lewes,  misapprehension  of  mystery,  i. 
279- 

Lewis,  Prof.  Tayler,  creation,  1.  489. 

Lex  talioitis,  ii.  539. 

Liberty,  love  of,  not  the  basis  of  popular 
government,  ii.  361,  549. 

Lilly,  W.  S.,  God  gives  the  sinner  what 
is  best  possible,  he  being  what  he  has 
made  himself  to  be,  ii.  474. 


566 


INDEX 


Linnaeus,  i.  166. 

Literalism  false,  i.  io. 

Locke,  John,  all  love  the  same  with  the 
love  of  grapes,  ii.  221. 

Lockyer,  N.,  number  of  visible  stars,  i. 
170,  416. 

Lombard,  Peter,  ethics,  i.  xSi. 

Longinus,  on  the  sublime,  i.  178. 

Lord,  significance  as  the  title  of  Christ,  i. 
316. 

Lotze,  i.  97,  99,  143. 

Love,  generic  name  of  God’s  moral  char¬ 
acter,  i.  1S9;  expresses  itself  in  acts  of 
trust  and  service,  i.  190;  ii.  310-334; 
is  good-will  regulated  in  righteousness, 
i.  191-195,  5°9~5I5  J  i!-  286-309,* 327  ; 
is  choice,  not  mere  feeling,  i.  189  f. ; 
God’s  love  disinterested,  i.  207  ;  ii.  248- 
253;  a  consuming  fire,  i.  510;  ii.  40 ; 
spontaneity,  ii.  77,  96  ;  various  uses  of 
the  word,  ii.  79  ;  comprehends  and 
vitalizes  all  right  character,  ii.  146 ; 
falsely  defined  as  desire,  ii.  81,  219  ; 
error  that  it  is  an  affection,  ii.  82  ;  self- 
renouncing,  self-denying,  self-develop¬ 
ing,  ii.  214-260;  falsely  presented  as  in 
antithesis  to  law,  ii.  307;  required  by 
law,  ii.  261  ;  unity  in  its  two  aspects  as 
righteousness  -and  benevolence,  ii.  302- 
309,  327  ;  its  antagonism  to  sin,  ii.  304  ; 
error  that  it  excludes  justice,  and  is  in 
antagonism  to  it,  ii.  307 ;  unity  in  its 
two  lines  of  manifestation  in  trust  and 
service,  ii.  310-334,  325  ;  unity  as  love 
to  God  and  to  man,  ii.  347;  essential 
to  the  true  progress  of  man,  ii.  349  ; 
blessed  in  its  exercise,  i.  202. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  i.  75  ;  ii,  125. 

Liibentia  ration  alls  ^  ii.  96. 

Lucretius,  i.  1S0. 

Luther,  Martin,  on  Pilate’s  staircase,  i. 
2S7 ;  creation,  i.  489;  impotence  of 
will,  ii.  89;  surplice,  ii.  70;  Christ  in 
the  Old  Testament,  i.  317. 

Lyddon,  Canon,  i.  21. 

Lynch  law,  ii.  452,  506. 

Lyttleton,  evidence  of  Christianity  in  the 
conversion  and  life  of  Paul,  i.  459. 

Mabie,  literature  and  the  spiritual  life,  i. 
90. 

Mackintosh,  Rev.  William,  punishment 
through  the  constitution  of  things  ex¬ 
cludes  God,  ii.  487. 

Maimonides,  maxim  as  to  interpretation, 
i.  12. 


Maine,  a  supernatural  presidency  the 
basis  of  a  state,  ii.  523. 

Malebranche,  see  all  things  in  God,  i.  520. 

Mallock,  i.  278. 

Man  in  the  likeness  of  God,  i.  41 1-422. 

Mansel,  God  suspending  moral  law  at 
will  in  special  cases,  ii.  485. 

Manu,  laws  of,  punishment  a  celestial 
being,  ii.  465. 

Marcion,  Deus  saevus ,  ii.  308. 

Martensen,  foreknowledge,  i.  137  ;  bond¬ 
age  in  sin,  ii.  477. 

Martial,  epigram,  gaining  by  giving,  ii. 
247- 

Martin,  Prof.,  popular  religion  of  Bud¬ 
dhists,  i.  272. 

Martineau,  materialism,  i.  52 ;  provin¬ 
cialism  of  this  planet,  i.  170  ;  character 
in  the  will,  ii.  71  ;  moral  ideas  not 
grounded  in  reason,  ii.  90. 

Martineau,  Harriet,  law  created  by  will,  i. 
146;  submission  to  God,  i.  546. 

Massa  perditionis ,  ii.  14. 

Mather,  Cotton,  eloquence,  ii.  410. 

McCurdy,  history,  prophecy,  and  the 
monuments,  i.  10;. 

McLean,  Chief  Justice,  collective  reason 
of  the  people,  ii.  524,  542. 

McLeod,  sin  its  own  punishment,  ii.  47S. 

Melanchthon,  sin  is  supreme  selfishness, 
ii.  200;  virtues  of  the  heathen  are 
splendid  vices,  ii.  21 1. 

Memory,  revival  of  when  near  death,  ii. 
490. 

Merit,  ii.  514. 

Messianic  texts  in  the  Old  Testament,  as 
reckoned  by  the  ancient  synagogue,  i. 
314  ;  Messiah  presented  as  branch  of 
Jehovah  and  of  David,  i.  313. 

Metaphysics  in  physical  science,  i.  167. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  i.  185;  influence  of  Christ,  i. 
455;  utilitarianism,  ii.  169;  misappre¬ 
hension  of  Christian  ethics,  ii.  188; 
training  children,  ii.  229;  expects  a 
time  when  all  business  will  be  con¬ 
ducted  as  service  to  man,  ii.  405. 

- ,  James,  i.  21 1  ;  ii.  231. 

Milton,  i.  37,  65  ;  avenge,  O  Lord,  i.  514  ; 
prevenient  grace,  ii.  5  ;  myself  am  hell, 
ii.  121,  477;  gravitation  toward  God, 
ii.  125;  unmoukling  reason’s  mintage, 
ii.  412;  political  principles  in  Israel,  ii. 
522;  a  grammatical  usage,  i.  302. 

Miracles,  ii.  4S5;  moral  miracles,  ii.  485; 
not  contrary  to  law,  ii.  485,  493  ;  ante¬ 
cedently  probable,  i.  388. 


INDEX 


567 


Missions,  foreign,  objection  that  not 
adapted  to  the  development  of  the  peo¬ 
ple,  ii.  423. 

Mivart,  ii.  549. 

Modes  of  being  in  the  Trinity,  i.  324, 

327- 

Mohammedism,  ii.  3S2. 

Monotheism,  one  only  God,  i.  322  ;  with¬ 
out  Christ  rigid  and  oppressive,  i,  358— 
363;  Mohammedism,  i.  358;  Judaism, 

i.  359  ;  use  of  Elohim,  i.  473. 

Moral  character  defined  psychologically. 

ii.  53-140  ;  the  question  stated,  ii.  60  ; 
morality  and  religion,  ii.  61,  142  f.  ;  pri¬ 
marily  the  supreme  choice,  ii.  61 ;  possi¬ 
ble  only  as  determined  by  the  will,  ii.  62 ; 
distinguished  from  volitional  action,  ii. 
62  ;  from  nature  or  constitution,  ii.  62  ; 
moral  character  not  primarily  in  the 
intellect,  ii.  63 ;  practical  tendency  of 
the  error  that  it  is  intellectual  culture, 
ii.  65 ;  not  primarily  in  the  feelings, 
ii.  66 ;  evil  practical  tendency  of  this 
conception,  ii.  67  ;  man’s  soul  instinct¬ 
ively  cries  out  for  God,  ii.  69  ;  legitimate 
appeal  to  feeling  as  motives,  ii.  69 ; 
moral  character  in  its  primary  mean¬ 
ing,  ii.  71-102;  object  of  supreme 
choice  a  person  or  persons,  ii.  72; 
manifested  in  acts  of  trust  and  service, 
ii.  74  ;  freedom  and  continuity  of  char¬ 
acter,  ii.  75  ;  unity,  ii.  76  ;  spontaneity, 
ii.  77  ;  love  required  in  thelaw  is  choice, 
ii.  78  ;  various  uses  of  the  word,  ii.  79  ; 
false  theological  definition  of  love  as 
desire,  ii.  Si  ;  error  that  love  required 
in  the  law  is  an  affection,  ii.  82;  the¬ 
ology  vitiated  by  this  error,  ii.  82 ; 
ethics  vitiated  by  it,  ii.  89  ;  obviated  by 
the  true  psychological  definition,  ii.  92  ; 
objections  answered,  ii.  92 ;  rational 
spontaneity,  ii.  96 ;  character  as  su¬ 
preme  choice  expressed  in  subordinate 
choices  and  volitions,  ii.  97;  supreme 
choice  is  right  or  wrong  in  itself,  ii.  98; 
moral  character  of  a  person  in  any  act 
not  determined  by  its  motive,  ii.  99  ; 
the  end  does  not  justify  the  means,  ii. 
99 ;  moral  character  in  its  secondary 
meaning,  ii.  102-109;  definition,  ii. 
102  ;  character  in  intellectual  action  as 
determined  or  modified  by  free  will,  ii. 
102  ;  same  true  of  the  sensibilities,  ii. 
104;  same  true  of  habits,  ii.  107;  ac¬ 
tion  of  the  will  inducing  moral  charac¬ 
ter  in  all  these,  ii.  107;  minor  morals, 


ii.  108;  beginning  of  moral  character, 
ii.  109-112,  509;  development  of  moral 
character  by  voluntary  action,  ii.  1x2- 
134  ;  supreme  choice  strengthened,  ii. 
1 12  ;  clearer  and  larger  comprehension 
of  its  significance,  ii.  112;  protensive 
influence  of  choice,  ii.  115  ;  reacts  on 
constitutional  motives,  ii.  116  ;  the  per¬ 
son  determines  the  moral  influence  of 
his  environment,  ii.  1x7;  issues  in 
spontaneity  of  action,  ii.  123 ;  real 
freedom,  ii.  125  ;  selfishness  issues  in 
spontaneity,  but  not  in  real  freedom, 
ii.  129;  character  confirmed,  ii.  131. 

Morality  and  religion,  ii.  61,  142,  339-383, 
342- 

More,  Sir  Henry,  i.  176;  ii.  195. 

Mozley,  unconditional  predestination,  i. 
554;  infusion  of  habits  by  divine  power, 
ii.  89  ;  the  will  confirmed  in  its  choice 
in  spontaneity  of  action  is  not  free, 
ii.  127;  grace  identified  with  power, 
ii.  89. 

Muller,  Max,  Dyaus,  i.  46;  religion  uni¬ 
versal,  i.  55;  Nirvana,  i.  266;  what 
makes  a  people,  ii.  522. 

- ,  Julius,  1.  238;  self-existence,  i.  ixS, 

1 19;  law  of  love,  ii.  1S9;  return  to 
God  closed  only  to  those  who  close  it 
against  themselves,  ii.  478 ;  faith,  ii. 
327- 

Music  of  the  spheres,  i.  91. 

Mystery,  i.  275-293  ;  all  finite  knowledge 
encompassed  by  it,  i.  275,  548;  knowl¬ 
edge  valid  in  face  of  unanswered  ques¬ 
tions,  i.  275  ;  mystery  not  the  absurd 
or  impossible,  i.  277  ;  progressive 
knowledge  of  what  had  been  mystery 
and  regarded  as  impossible,  i.  277; 
God  the  absolute  Reason,  the  knowledge 
of  him  always  reasonable,  i.  278;  mys¬ 
tery  implies  knowledge,  i.  279;  not  a 
proposition  in  unintelligible  terms,  i. 
280;  not  mere  ignorance,  i.  280;  God 
always  transcends  human  knowledge, 
which  therefore  must  be  progressive, 
i.  281 ;  every  revelation  of  God  reveals 
the  mystery  inseparable  from  him  as 
the  absolute  Being,  i.  282,  364;  the 
larger  the  knowledge  the  larger  the 
horizon  of  the  unknown,  i.  282  ;  any 
revelation  of  God  claiming  to  be  free 
from  mystery  must  be  false,  i.  284; 
God  the  greatest  of  mysteries,  the 
solution  of  all,  i.  285 ;  practical  value 
of  the  consciousness  of  mystery,  i.  285 ; 


568 


INDEX 


revelation  and  knowledge  of  God  pro¬ 
gressive  forever,  i.  22-28,  38,  287 ; 
equanimity  in  using  knowledge  in  the 
presence  of  mystery,  i.  2S8;  objection 
that  the  progressiveness  of  theological 
belief  is  incompatible  with  the  reality 
of  the  knowledge,  i.  28S  ;  use  the 
knowledge  which  we  have  in  the  prac¬ 
tical  work  of  the  Christian  life,  i.  292; 
objections  founded  on  ignorance  not 
valid  against  evidence  founded  on 
knowledge,  i.  293 ;  not  to  dwell  dis¬ 
proportionately  on  objections,  i.  293. 

Name,  God  calling  by,  i.  14S. 

Names  of  God,  i.  359,  492. 

Natural  and  moral  ability,  ii.134-140. 

Nature  and  the  supernatural,  i.  69-72; 
laws  of,  i.  154. 

Neander,  false  theodicy,  i.  215;  Trinity 
the  essential  contents  of  Christianity, 
i.  294;  the  elder  Pliny,  i.  360;  Trinity 
the  fundamental  consciousness  of  the 
Church,  i.  372. 

Neighbor?  Who  is  my,  ii.  384. 

Neodoxy,  i.  25. 

New  England  theology,  basis  of,  ii.  100. 

Newman,  Cardinal,  i.  11 ;  God  transcends 
number,  i.  325  ;  person  in  the  Trinity, 
i.  331;  if  self-culture  is  the*  supreme 
end  it  is  missed,  ii.  431. 

Nicene  creed,  oneness  of  God  in  the 
Trinity,  i.  323. 

Nihilists,  ii.  256. 

Nirvana,  i.  267,  272. 

Nitzsch,  i.  201,  236;  righteousness  in¬ 
cluded  in  love,  ii.  309 ;  consequences 
of  sin,  ii.  496. 

Noble  discontent,  i.  229. 

Noire,  Ludwig,  pessimism  and  suicide, 

i.  266;  despotism,  ii.  145. 

Norton,  Prof.  Andrews,  Unitarianism, 

i-  373- 

Novalis,  character  in  the  will,  ii.  71. 

Obedience  refused  to  human  law  re¬ 
quiring  disobedience  to  God,  ii.  550. 

Objections  founded  on  ignorance  of  no 
validity  against  evidence  founded  on 
knowledge,  i.  293. 

Occam,  i.  171,  534. 

O’Connor,  Rev.  Dr.  J.  B.,  punishment 
only  for  sins  committed  in  this  life, 

ii.  501. 

Omnipotence  of  God,  i.  177-187;  power 
implied  in  will,  i.  177;  creative,  i.  17S  ; 


efficiency  of  God’s  will,  i.  178;  al¬ 
mighty,  i.  178;  distinguished  from 
equipollence,  i.  179;  regulated  by  rea¬ 
son,  i.  1 79  f .  ;  regulation  determining 
what  is  possible  and  what  is  right, 
i.  180-183;  effects  commensurate  with 
the  character  and  constitution  of  the 
beings  acted  on  or  acted  through,  i. 
141,  1 8 1 ;  freedom  of  God’s  will,  i. 
183-188. 

Omnipresence  of  God,  i.  120. 

Omniscience,  i.  133-147. 

Optimism,  false  theories  of,  i.  241 ;  Chris¬ 
tian  doctrine  of,  ii.  32-52,  253. 

O’Reilly,  J .  B.,  love  not  sacrificial,  ii.  221. 

Origen,  the  sinner  kindles  the  fire  that 
torments  him,  ii.  477 ;  foreknowledge, 

i.  140. 

Orr,  Rev.  Dr.  James,  Trinity,  i.  322. 

Other-worldliness,  ii.  436. 

Paley,  self-love  theory,  ii.  163;  pun¬ 
ishment  only  for  sins  in  this  life, 

ii.  500. 

Pantheism,  tendency  to,  i.  81,  354. 

Parasitism,  ii.  366. 

Parker,  Theodore,  on  Jesus,  i.  448,  455. 

Pascal,  Blaise  and  Jacqueline,  asceticism, 
ii.  232. 

Passionateness  is  weakness,  i.  203. 

Patriarchal  government,  i.  539;  ii.  256, 
529. 

Patton,  Rev.  Dr.  Francis  L.,  God  bound 
to  be  just  but  not  to  be  benevolent, 
ii.  371. 

Paul,  Jean  (Richter),  love  of  life,  i.  252. 

Peirce,  Prof.,  scope  for  endless  intellec¬ 
tual  activity,  i.  132. 

Penalty,  what  it  is  in  the  punishment  of 
sinners,  ii.  466-481  ;  alienation  from 
God,  ii.  466 ;  antagonism  to  him, 
ii.  466;  shuts  out  the  influence  of 
God’s  Spirit,  ii.  466 ;  shuts  out  from 
communion  with  God,  ii.  46S;  God 
seeks  the  sinner,  but  is  resisted,  ii.  46S; 
under  God’s  displacency  and  condem¬ 
nation,  ii.  469 ;  privation  of  good  and 
positive  suffering  in  the  disorder  and 
depravation  of  the  sinner  caused  by 
his  violation  of  his  own  constitution, 
ii.  470-479;  self-conflict,  ii.  470  ;  crav¬ 
ing  of  desire,  ii.  471 ;  continuity  and 
development  of  character  by  action, 
ii.  473 ;  depth  of  self-caused  woe, 
ii.  476;  the  evil  incurred  is  the  ex¬ 
pression  of  the  justice  of  God,  ii.  475, 


INDEX 


569 


492  ;  privation  and  suffering  through 
the  constitution  of  things  not  always 
penalty  for  sin,  ii.  479,  490;  remorse 
not  the  only  penalty  for  sin,  ii.  493  ; 
sin  issues  in  moral  impotence  for  good, 
ii.  473;  the  sinner  brings  his  punish¬ 
ment  on  himself,  ii.  476 ;  isolation  from 
his  fellow-men  brought  on  himself  by 
violating  the  constitution  of  the  moral 
system,  ii.  479;  privation  of  physical 
good  and  suffering  physical  evil,  brought 
on  himself  by  violating  the  constitution 
of  the  physical  system,  ii.  479  ;  exclu¬ 
sion  from  heaven  after  death  and  the 
privation  and  evil  implied  in  this  as  set 
forth  in  the  Bible,  ii.  480. 

Penance,  ii.  346. 

Peripatetic  ethics,  ii.  179. 

Perkins,  William,  i.  36. 

Person,  technical  meaning  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity,  i.  327-332. 

Personality  the  realm  of  ends,  ii.  148. 

Pessimism,  i.  247-275 ;  necessarily  im¬ 
plied  in  atheism,  i.  247;  definition  and 
history,  i.  248  f.  ;  testimony  to  which  it 
appeals  not  relevant,  i.  249  ;  not  estab¬ 
lished  by  facts,  i.  252,  255;  false  as¬ 
sumptions  as  to  the  nature  and  sources 
of  happiness  and  well-being,  i.  253-257; 
pain  alone  positive,  i.  253,  256;  as¬ 
sumes  that  life  is  actuated  solely  by 
desire,  i.  254,  256;  does  not  recognize 
personality  in  its  full  significance,  i.  257; 
assumes  that  the  universe  is  grounded 
in  unreason,  i.  261 ;  implies  illusion  in 
three  forms,  i.  263;  Buddhistic  doctrine 
that  finite  existence  is  essentially  evil, 
i.  263  ;  redemption  only  by  extinction, 
i.  265  ;  plan  for  universal  suicide,  i. 

265  ;  Buddhistic  Nirvana  and  Karma, 
i.  266 ;  Buddhistic  moral  teaching,  i. 

266  ;  is  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  athe¬ 
ism,  i.  272;  ii.  354;  denies  the  person¬ 
ality  of  God  and  of  man,  i.  274. 

Petrarch,  1,000  blessings  not  worth  one 
pain,  i.  254. 

Pharaoh,  i.  507. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  i.  24. 

Philo,  God  an  overflowing  cup,  i.  349. 

Physico-theological  argument,  i.  50. 

Pindar,  inevitableness  of  the  punishment 
of  sin,  ii.  506. 

Plato,  time  and  eternity,  i.  125  ;  concep¬ 
tion  of  the  universe,  i.  125,  199  ;  choice 
and  volition,  ii.  57;  common  idea  in  all 
virtues,  ii.  144  ;  virtue  defined  by  Meno 


and  Polus,  ii.  205  ;  dogs  of  Athens,  ii. 
206;  successive  ages,  ii.  35 3;  after 
death  the  judgment,  ii.  471  ;  laws  of  the 
state  sisters  of  the  laws  of  God,  ii.  523  ; 
until  philosophers  are  kings,  ii.  543  ; 
fact  of  sin,  i.  231. 

Plenitude  an  attribute  of  God,  i.  126. 

Plotinus,  i.  79 ;  ashamed  that  he  had  a 
body,  ii.  231. 

Plutarch,  immortality,  ii.  509  ;  conscience, 

i.  226  ;  Egyptian  judges’  oath,  ii.  550. 

Poe,  Edgar  A.,  pessimism,  i.  265  f. 

Political  economy  based  on  moral  law,  ii. 

401. 

Pope,  Alexander,  decencies,  ii.  294. 

Popular  government,  ii.  524,  526. 

Positivism  of  Comte  transcended  and  left 
behind  by  recent  science,  i.  166. 

Potter  and  clay,  i.  505. 

Pressense,  the  serpent  the  Semitic  symbol 
of  the  power  of  evil,  i.  482 ;  faith  is 
trust,  ii.  313;  morality  and  religion,  ii. 
342  ;  Greek  tragedy,  ii.  462. 

Prevenient  grace,  ii.  2-6. 

Private  judgment,  ii.  271-276. 

Probation,  nature  and  necessity,  ii.  482  ; 
issues  in  confirmed  character,  ii.  482  ; 
of  individuals,  not  of  the  race  in  Adam, 

ii.  484. 

Progress,  in  development  of  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  God,  i.  22-28,  38,  39  ;  the  Chris¬ 
tian  principle  of,  ii.  256,  351,  35S,  361, 
377  ;  its  necessity,  i.  157  ;  the  universe 
always  typical  of  a  higher  future,  i.  159  ; 
progressive  development  of  man,  i.  173; 
ii.  28 ;  attained  only  in  love  to  God  and 
man,  ii.  233-248;  progress  of  society 
only  as  individuals  are  educated  and 
developed  in  right  character,  ii.  351  ; 
the  power  vitalizing  progress  is  from 
Christ,  ii.  352;  principles  quickening 
and  regulating  it  depend  on  man’s  rela¬ 
tion  to  God  as  revealed  in  Christ,  ii. 
355  ;  essential  to  fit  men  for  self-govern¬ 
ment,  ii.  357  ;  the  problem,  ii.  358;  key 
to  solve  it,  ii.  358;  arrests  the  tendency 
to  the  reign  of  mediocrity,  ii.  357,  360; 
Christianity  insists  on  duties  rather 
than  on  rights,  ii.  361 ;  methods  and 
aims  in  promoting  progress  determined 
by  man’s  likeness,  obligations  and  re¬ 
lations  to  God,  ii.  361 ;  not  by  revolu¬ 
tion  but  by  living  growth,  i.  40;  ii.  367; 
evidence  of  progress,  ii.  360 ;  in  the 
development  of  civil  government,  ii. 
357;  by  evolution,  not  by  revolution, 


570 


INDEX 


i.  40 ;  ii.  367 ;  progress  does  not  rest 
on  the  love  of  liberty,  but  on  righteous¬ 
ness  and  good-will,  ii.  361. 

Prophecy,  i.  100- 104. 

Prophetic  function  of  individuals  and  of 
the  Church,  i.  100-104  ;  ii.  279. 

Protestant  reformation  not  essentially 
rationalistic,  i.  387. 

Providence,  special,  ii.  32-52;  definition, 

ii.  32:  the  good  promised  is  both  essen¬ 
tial  and  relative,  ii.  32;  positive  well¬ 
being,  not  mere  warding  off  of  evil,  ii. 
36  ;  God  individualizes  on  the  basis  of 
character,  ii.  37 ;  all  things  work  for  evil 
to  the  persisting  sinner,  ii.  37  ;  sin  alone 
essential  evil,  ii.  38 ;  good  or  evil 
brought  on  a  person  by  his  own  char¬ 
acter  and  action,  under  the  constitution 
and  laws  of  the  universe,  ii.  39  ;  Chris¬ 
tian’s  trust  in  God’s  individualizing 
care,  ii.  41  ;  personal  communion  with 
God,  ii.  41  ;  calleth  each  by  name,  ii. 
41  ;  accords  with  reason,  ii.  42  ;  special 
providence  not  necessarily  miraculous, 
ii.  46 ;  always  accordant  with  law,  ii. 
47  ;  caution  in  interpreting  the  provi¬ 
dential  significance  of  events,  ii.  49 ; 
God’s  special  providence  insuring  the 
progress  and  triumph  of  his  kingdom, 
ii.  51. 

Providential  government  universal,  i.  548— 
568;  God’s  eternal  purpose,  i.  548; 
God’s  government  and  purpose  differ¬ 
ent  aspects  of  the  same  reality,  i.  551  ; 
moral  purpose  and  providential,  i.  551  ; 
not  an  arbitrary  fiat  of  will,  i.  552  ; 
presupposes  an  archetypal  ideal  of 
reason,  i.  552;  God’s  purpose  eternal, 
i.  556  ;  primarily  of  the  system  of  things 
realizing  the  archetypal  ideal,  particu¬ 
lar  beings  and  events  as  incidental  to  it, 
i.  556  ;  recognizes  God’s  efficient  agency 
and  that  of  finite  beings,  i.  557  ;  univer¬ 
sality  of  providential  government  and 
purpose  demanded  by  reason,  i.  560  ; 
accords  with  the  Bible,  i.  565  ;  provi¬ 
dential  government  and  sin,  i.  569-579  ; 
purpose  of  right  character  positive,  of 
sin  negative,  i.  569  ;  biblical  teaching,  i. 
574;  texts  seeming  to  imply  that  God 
is  the  author  of  sin,  i.  574-579;  provi¬ 
dential  government  and  purpose  in  rela¬ 
tion  to  redemption,  ii.  1-3 1.  See  Elec¬ 
tion. 

Provincialism  of  this  planet,  i.  413. 

Punishment,  the  sanction  of  the  law,  ii. 


442;  definition,  ii.  442;  essential  to 
the  existence  of  a  moral  system,  ii.  443 ; 
inflicted  by  government  on  a  trans¬ 
gressor  in  accordance  with  law,  for  his 
ill  desert,  ii.  444;  to  assert,  maintain, 
and  vindicate  law  and  government  in 
the  face  of  transgression,  ii.  444;  pre¬ 
rogative  of  government  alone,  ii.  445  ; 
distinguished  from  discipline,  but  does 
not  exclude  it,  ii.  447;  same  in  God’s 
government,  i.  510;  ii.  448;  designed 
to  promote  the  well-being  of  society 
and  to  protect  from  wrong-doers,  ii. 
451,  454;  educating  influence,  ii.  452  ; 
distinguished  from  revenge,  ii.  456 ; 
its  necessity,  ii.  457  ;  in  law  eternal  in 
the  absolute  reason,  ii.  457;  in  the 
righteousness  of  God,  i.  5x0/;  ii.  459; 
in  the  constitution  of  the  universe,  ii. 
459;  demanded  by  the  reason  and  con¬ 
science  of  man,  ii.  460;  evident  in  the 
history  of  man,  ii.  462 ;  practical  ends 
subserved  by  it,  ii.  465  :  reasonableness, 
obligation  of  government  to  inflict  it,  ii. 
4S5 ;  God’s  action  in  punishing  not 
arbitrary,  ii.  486 ;  significance  in  theo¬ 
dicy  of  the  fact  that  sinners  bring 
punishment  on  themselves  through  the 
constitution  of  things,  ii.  4S7-499  ;  error 
that  punishment  after  death  is  only  for 
sins  in  this  life,  ii.  499  ;  objection  that 
remission  of  penalty  would  be  impossi¬ 
ble,  ii.  502;  objection  that  fear  of  pun¬ 
ishment  is  a  debasing  motive,  ii.  504; 
biblical  emblems,  ii.  510;  inflicted  in 
an  atmosphere  of  goodwill,  i.  509;  ii. 
468.  See  Penalty. 

Purpose,  God’s  eternal,  to  realize  his 
archetypal  ideal,  i.  556. 

Pythagoreans,  number  the  fundamental 
reality,  i.  99. 

Rabbinical  word  mongering,  i.  7;  simi¬ 
lar  tendency  in  Christian  theologians, 
i.  8;  multiplying  rules,  ii.  27S. 

Rationalism,  false,  i.  383;  Christian,  i. 

386. 

Realism,  theistic.  i.  160-176;  natural,  i. 
160;  rational,  i.  160;  not  ultimate,  but 
rests  on  theistic,  i.  161;  exemplified  in 
physical  science,  i.  162;  in  all  knowl¬ 
edge,  i.  163. 

Realistic  novels  and  poetry,  ii.  435. 

Real  principle  of  the  law,  ii.  141-192  ;  law 
of  love  a  principle  comprehending  all 
specific  duties  and  determining  the  per- 


INDEX 


571 


son’s  moral  character  in  every  specific 
act,  ii.  145  ;  common  quality  of  all  vir¬ 
tues,  ii.  144;  not  merely  that  they  con¬ 
form  to  the  law,  ii.  144  f.  ;  significance 
in  Christ’s  life,  ii.  145. 

Reason,  human  like  the  divine,  i.  51-57, 
160-174,  219  f. ;  absolute,  i.  12S;  uni¬ 
verse  grounded  in,  i.  150-159 ;  attributes 
of  God  as  Reason,  i.  128-176;  basis  of 
theodicy,  i.  210-215,  217  f.  ;  reason  in 
God  the  same  with  that  of  rational  per¬ 
sons  in  all  worlds,  i.  411-416;  reason 
absolute  in  God  the  seat  of  law,  i.  154. 

Reception  and  production,  ii.  74,  310, 
367;  reception  precedes  production,  ii. 
74,  310,  3T3- 

Reciprocal  and  gratuitous  service,  ii.  394. 

Rectitude,  ethical  theory  of,  ii.  171. 

Redemption  began  as  soon  as  man  sinned, 
i.  481 ;  as  related  to  God’s  providential 
government  and  purpose,  ii.  1-31.  See 
Election. 

Regeneration  by  God’s  Spirit,  ii.  2-6  ;  not 
by  almightiness,  ii.  10. 

Religion,  distinction  of  revealed  and 
natural,  misleading,  i.  99;  universal, 

i.  46,  55,  58. 

Renan,  on  Jesus  Christ,  i.  456;  Christi¬ 
anity  religion’s  last  word,  1.  63. 

Repentance,  ii.  322.  346. 

Reprobation,  excluded,  i.  571. 

Reuss,  i.  305,  306. 

Revelation,  and  reason,  i.  16,  18,  19,  42; 
revelation  through  the  Logos  or  Son  of 
God  progressive  through  epochs,  i.  180, 
186,  408  ;  revelation,  belief,  reason,  i. 
45-69;  the  universe  a  continuous  reve¬ 
lation  of  God,  i.  50 ;  in  the  evolution  of 
the  physical  system,  i.  50 ;  in  the  con¬ 
stitution  of  man,  i.  52 ;  in  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  moral  system,  i.  54  ;  highest 
form  in  Christ,  i.  55,  66;  ii.  381  ;  in 
God’s  historical  action  preparatory  to 
coming  in  Christ,  i.  410;  ii.  381  ;  con¬ 
tinued  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  i.  55  ;  in  the 
experience  of  individuals,  i.  55  ;  of  God 
in  Christ  not  abnormal,  but  reasonable 
and  antecedently  probable,  i.  63-68, 
41 1  ;  ii.  374;  unity  and  continuity,  i. 
48-68,  106-112. 

Revolution,  when  justifiable,  ii.  544 ; 
evolution  rather  than  revolution,  i.  40; 

ii.  367. 

Reward  of  the  righteous,  i.  51 1. 

Reynolds,  universe  an  autobiography  of 
God,  i.  57. 


Rhys  Davids,  Nirvana  and  Karma,  i.  267, 
272. 

Righteousness,  three  aspects,  truthful¬ 
ness,  justice,  complacency,  ii.  288  ;  to 
self,  ii.  427  ;  and  benevolence  two  as¬ 
pects  of  God’s  love,  i.  191  ;  revealed  as 
such  in  Christ,  i.  194;  aspects  of  all 
love,  ii.  286-309;  unity  of  love  in  these 
two  aspects,  ii  302 ;  its  antagonism  to 
sin,  ii.  304;  error  excluding  justice 
from,  and  putting  it  in  antagonism  to 
love,  ii.  307;  righteousness  of  God,  ii. 
308. 

Rights  of  man,  ii.  355,  545-551 ;  inalien¬ 
able,  ii.  355,  546;  correlative  to,  duties, 
ii.  361,  546;  abstract,  ii.  533;  natural 
and  positive,  ii.  533,  547 ;  worth  of 
man  and  sacredness  of  his  rights  a 
power  in  civilization  through  Christ,  ii. 
352,  547  ;  disobedience  to  human  law 
when  it  requires  disobedience  to  God, 
ii-  356,  55°- 

Ripley,  Mrs.  Sarah  A.  B.,  Unitarianism, 

i.  391. 

Ritschl,  i.  306;  ii.  249. 

Rothe,  self-existence,  i.  119;  foreknowl¬ 
edge,  i.  137,  139,  142  ;  Christ  in  the 
Old  Testament,  i.  314,  315  ;  objection 
to  creation,  i.  484 ;  taking  fate  into  the 
will,  ii.  126. 

Rousseau,  hedonism,  ii.  159;  conscience, 

ii.  160. 

Royce,  Professor,  ii.  205. 

Ruskin,  i.  33  ;  culture  divorced  from  ser¬ 
vice  in  love,  ii.  431. 

Sa’di,  the  Bustdn,  i.  269. 

Sabellianism,  i.  327. 

Sacrifices,  human,  ii.  342-344. 

Sacrificial  character  of  religion,  ii.  342- 

345- 

Salmoneus,  imitating  Jupiter’s  thunder¬ 
bolts,  ii.  212. 

Sanction  of  the  law,  ii.  442-518;  defini¬ 
tion,  442-457.  See  Punishment ;  does 
it  include  reward  for  right  character  and 
action  ?  ii.  51 1. 

Sand  George  (Madame  Dudevant),  sacri¬ 
ficial  element  in  true  virtue,  ii.  222. 

Sayce,  the  serpent  in  Semitic  belief,  i. 
481. 

Scaliger,  J.  C.,  i.  40. 

Schelling,  self-existence,  i.  119;  myth¬ 
ology  in  the  making  of  a  people,  ii. 
522. 

Schleiermacher,  time  and  eternity,  i.  122; 


572 


INDEX 


space  and  immensity,  i.  12 1  ;  punish¬ 
ment,  ii.  494. 

Schopenhauer,  pain  positive,  pleasure 
negative,  i.  253  ;  will  to  live,  i.  257, 
258,  262  ;  suicide,  i.  265. 

Science  rests  on  the  postulate  that  the 
universe  is  grounded  in  reason,  ii.  20; 
constituted  and  evolved  according  to 
its  principles  and  laws,  the  same  in 
kind  with  those  of  human  reason,  i.  51, 
60;  ii.  340;  itself  metaphysical,  i.  167; 
why  Christ  did  not  x'eveal  modern  dis¬ 
coveries,  ii.  364 

Scientists,  progress  toward  fuller  recog¬ 
nition  of  religion,  i.  68. 

Scott,  Sir  W.,  self-denial,  ii.  228. 

Scougal,  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man, 

i.  89. 

Secret  of  Jesus,  ii.  214,  233. 

Secular  and  religious,  i.  34,  88  ;  ii.  385, 
397 ;  secular  business,  Christian  ser¬ 
vice  in,  ii.  3S6  ;  greater  part  of  life 
occupied  in  it,  ii.  386 ;  is  itself  service 
to  man,  ii.  387  ;  this  service  reaches 
beyond  the  individual  directly  served 

ii.  389 ;  contributes  to  the  progress 
and  well-being  of  man,  ii.  391  ;  trans¬ 
actions  in  detail  in  good-will  regulated 
in  righteousness,  ii.  393  ;  scope  for  ser¬ 
vice  in  the  use  of  income,  ii.  393  ;  ser¬ 
vice  to  exert  direct  religious  influence, 
ii.  408  ;  types  of  character  and  civili¬ 
zation,  ii.  399. 

Self-denial,  distinguished  from  self-re¬ 
nunciation  in  love,  ii.  225-233,  defini¬ 
tion,  ii.  225  ;  essential  to  achievement 
in  any  line,  of  action,  ii.  226  ;  not  pecu¬ 
liar  to  Christian  character,  and  work, 
ii.  225 ;  essential  to  development  of 
character  and  efficiency  in  service, 
if.  226 ;  discipline  and  development 
by  self-denial  in  the  work  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  life  is  the  true  ascetics,  ii.  22S ; 
lacking  in  communism  and  socialism, 
ii.  229;  false  ascetics  by  self-inflicted 
privation  and  suffering,  ii.  231. 

Self-development  by  self-renunciation, 
ii.  214-260,  233 ;  paradox  of  Jesus, 
ii.  214,  233  ;  right  character  begins  in 
trusting  God  and  so  renouncing  self  as 
the  supreme  object  of  trust,  ii.  233 ; 
self-sacrificing  love  stimulates  to  the 
normal  exertion  of  all  one’s  powers, 
ii.  234;  opens  the  widest  scope  for 
action,  ii.  235  ;  insures  self-mastery 
and  real  freedom,  ii.  236;  accords  with 


the  Christian  law  of  service,  ii.  240; 
good  accrues  in  this  life  from  every 
act  of  loving  service,  evil  from  every 
act  of  selfishness,  ii.  244  ;  the  good 
thus  attained  is  everlasting,  ii.  246. 

Self-existence  of  God,  i.  1  x  7  f . ;  error 
that  he  is  the  cause  of  himself,  i.  11S, 
349  i  ii-  87- 

Selfishness,  real  freedom  impossible  in, 
ii.  129  ;  seminal  principal  of  all  sin, 
ii.  194;  absurd,  ii.  211  ;  distinguished 
from  constitutional  self-love,  ii.  216. 

Self-love  theory  of  moral  character,  ii. 

T53- 

Self-reliance,  distinguished  from  self- 
sufficiency,  ii.  426. 

Self-renunciation  of  love,  ii.  215-225,  re¬ 
nunciation  of  self  as  the  supreme  ob¬ 
ject  of  trust  and  service,  ii.  225  ;  in 
the  positive  act  of  choosing  God  as 
supreme  and  neighbor  as  one’s  self, 
ii.  216  ;  love  in  its  essence  self-renounc¬ 
ing,  ii.  217  ;  vicarions,  ii.  21S  ;  distin¬ 
guished  from  desire,  ii.  219;  man’s 
love  like  God’s,  ii.  222  ;  analogy  with 
the  likeness  of  man’s  reason  with  God’s, 
ii.  223  ;  Christ  reveals  the  same  like¬ 
ness  of  God  to  man  in  love,  ii.  223. 

Self,  service  of,  ii.  418-441  ;  in  benevo¬ 
lence,  ii.  427  ;  righteousness  to  self,  ii. 
427  ;  truthfulness  to,  ii.  427  ;  justice 
to,  ii.  42S  ;  complacency,  ii.  429;  the 
particular  acts  of  duty  to  self  deter¬ 
mined  by  the  person’s  judgment,  ii.  . 
430  ;  self-culture  and  self-development, 
ii.  430  ;  missed  if  made  the  supreme 
end,  ii.  431  ;  self-support,  ii.  432  ;  ego¬ 
ism  and  altruism,  ii.  401  ;  unity  of  in¬ 
tellectual,  moral,  aesthetic,  and  pruden¬ 
tial  development  in  Christian  civiliza¬ 
tion,  ii.  433-441. 

Self-sufficiency,  self-will,  self-seeking, 
self-glorifying,  ii.  193. 

Seneca,  virtue  open  to  all,  even  to  slaves, 
ii.  350;  self-sufficiency,  ii.  204. 

Sermons,  subject  of,  i.  35. 

Serpent,  in  Semitic  belief  the  incarnation 
of  wickedness  and  guile,  also  in  India 
and  Persia,  i.  481,  482. 

Servant,  Christ  in  the  form  of,  ii.  373. 

Service,  law  of,  ii.  240  ;  given  by  Christ, 
ii.  240  ;  greatness  for  service,  ii.  241  ; 
greatness  by  service,  ii.  241  ;  manifes¬ 
tation  of  love,  ii.  323  ;  service  to  man¬ 
kind,  ii.  369  ;  measure  of,  due  to  man¬ 
kind,  ii.  369;  in  secular  business,  ii. 


INDEX 


573 


386  ;  reciprocal  and  gratuitous,  ii.  394  ; 
in  domestic  and  social  relations,  ii.  406  ; 
in  direct  religious  influence,  ii.  408  ;  to 
the  good  and  to  the  bad,  ii.  415  ;  to 
one’s  self  and  one’s  own,  ii.  418. 

Seward,  the  Higher  Law,  ii.  524. 

Shaftesbury,  Lord,  inspiration,  i.  93. 

Shakespeare,  moral  character  in  the  will, 
ii.  63  ;  appeal  to  law,  ii.  539. 

Shedd,  Prof.,  modes  of  being  in  the 
Trinity,  i.  327  ;  God  bound  to  be  just 
but  not  to  be  benevolent,  ii.  371. 

Shelley,  mutability,  i.  250 ;  time  and 
eternity,  i.  350. 

Sheridan,  ii.  41 1. 

Sidgewick,  free  will  not  essential  to 
ethics,  ii.  91. 

Sin,  unreasonable,  is  foolish  as  well  as 
wicked,  i.  215  ;  the  fact  consistent 
with  God’s  love,  i.  231  ;  false  theories 
of  theodicy  as  to  sin,  i.  233-241  ;  not 
the  necessary  means  of  the  greatest 
good,  i.  233  f.  ;  is  neither  essential  nor 
relative  good,  i.  234  f. ;  ii.  455;  all 
God’s  action  in  reference  to  it  in  per¬ 
fect  wisdom  and  love,  i.  234 ;  sin  not 
identified  with  the  limitations  and  im¬ 
perfection  inhei'ent  in  finiteness,  i.  237  ; 
error  that  the  greater  the  sinner  the 
greater  the  saint,  i.  238-243  ;  does  not 
extinguish  the  being,  development  in 
sin,  i.  237 ;  not  essential  in  the  neces¬ 
sary  contrasts  in  life,  i.  238;  exists 
through  the  free  action  of  finite  free 
agents,  i.  239;  its  fact  and  its  essen¬ 
tial  characteristics  recognized  in  Gen. 
i.-iii.,  i.  478-481  ;  relation  to  God’s 
providential  government  and  purpose, 
i.  569-579;  does  not  frustrate  God’s 
purpose  i.  572;  texts  seeming  to  ap¬ 
ply  that  God  is  the  author  of  sin, 

i.  574  ;  not  a  nature,  man  not  born 
sinful,  ii.  62  ;  essential  characteristics, 

ii.  193  ;  choice  of  self  as  the  supreme 
object  of  trust  and  service,  ii.  193  ;  sin¬ 
ful  character  in  its  primary  meaning, 
ii.  194;  four  forms,  ii.  193;  begins  in 
self-trusting,  manifested  in  self-suffici¬ 
ency  and  self-righteousness,  issues  in 
self-serving  manifested  in  self-will  and 
self-seeking,  ii.  194  ;  analogous  with 
development  of  Christian  character  in 
faith  and  works,  ii.  195  ;  proof,  philo¬ 
sophical,  ii.  195;  biblical,  ii.  197;  in 
Christ,  ii.  198  ;  sin  in  its  origin,  ii.  197; 
in  its  development,  ii.  198  ;  in  differ¬ 


ent  aspects,  ii.  201  ;  disobedience  to 
law,  ii.  201  ;  positive  not  negative,  ii. 
201  ;  alienation  from  God,  ii.  202  ;  not 
to  be  identified  with  ignorance  of  God, 
ii.  202 ;  in  what  sense  it  may  be  said 
to  be  total,  ii.  204  ;  as  individuation, 
ii.  204  ;  carnal  man,  ii.  207 ;  world¬ 
liness,  ii.  209 ;  antagonism  to  truth, 
ii.  211  ;  madness,  ii.  212;  worthy  of 
contempt,  ii.  212;  spiritual  death,  ii. 
213 ;  its  evil  influences  irreparable, 
ii.  455  ;  unpardonable,  ii.  449. 

Sincerity,  ii.  294,  413, 

Sisinnius,  disintegrating  the  Bible  into 
texts  each  a  universal  truth,  i.  10. 

Smith,  John,  unity  of  God  in  various 
aspects  and  attributes,  i.  114. 

Social  science  determined  by  the  prin¬ 
ciples  of  Christianity,  ii.  351-367,  548. 

Socrates,  resolved  virtue  into  wisdom,  ii. 
64  ;  soul  of  man  partaker  of  the  divine, 
ii.  461. 

Sophocles,  pessimism,  i.  250  ;  utilitarian¬ 
ism,  ii.  166;  ii.  206;  atonement, 

ii.  219;  educating  influence  of  punish¬ 
ment  under  law,  ii.  453  ;  conscientious 
disobedience  to  human  law,  ii.  550. 

Sorrow  and  suffering,  i.  222-231. 

South,  Robert,  controversies  on  the 
Trinity,  i.  295;  merit,  ii.  514;  dishon¬ 
esty,  ii.  400. 

Sovereignty,  God’s,  not  of  arbitrary  will, 

i-  *3h  J34i  D5)  t46,  5i9~547- 

Spectator,  Christian,  self-love  theory,  ii. 

161. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  law  created  by  will,  i. 
146;  God  not  subject  to  law,  i.  220; 
objection  that  the  ideal  not  realized,  ii. 
17  ;  in  the  future  men  to  enjoy  serving 
others,  i.  226;  Christianity  exclusive 
altruism,  ii.  425  ;  egoistic  impulses 
factors  in  the  progress  of  civilization, 
ii.  425,  430  ;  root  of  right  social  action 
in  justice,  ii.  534  ;  progress,  i.  312  ;  the 
great  political  superstition,  ii.  532. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  archetypal  ideal,  i. 
130. 

Spinoza,  love  exclusive  altruism,  ii.  251  ; 
spiritual  automaton,  i.  216  ;  fatalism, 
i.  552. 

Spirit  not  matter  the  fundamental  reality, 
i.  72-78,  176,  419. 

Spontaneity  in  love,  i.  221  ;  ii.  77,  123, 
237  ;  real  freedom,  ii.  125  ;  consistent 
with  moral  freedom,  ii.  125  ;  in  selfish¬ 
ness  no  real  freedom,  ii.  129. 


574 


INDEX 


Spurgeon,  verbal  inspiration,  i.  95 . 

State  and  church,  i.  7  ;  ii.  527  ;  the  state 
not  atheistic,  ii.  540. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  conscience  as  constitu¬ 
tional  obsolete,  ii.  465  ;  men  believe  in 
hell  because  they  are  virtuous,  ii.  507. 

Stewardship,  law  of,  ii.  433  ;  no  universal 
rule  as  to  the  proportion  of  income  to 
be  expended  in  charity,  ii.  432  ;  expen¬ 
diture  for  the  pleasurable  and  the 
beautiful,  ii.  433 ;  unity  of  the  intellec¬ 
tual,  moral,  aesthetic  in  religion  realiz¬ 
ing  the  true  good,  ii.  435  ;  isolation  of 
the  intellectual,  ii.  435  ;  of  the  aesthetic, 
ii.  435  ;  of  the  moral,  ii.  436;  Christian 
civilization  to  realize  the  true,  right, 
perfect,  and  good  in  harmony  in  the 
Christian  life,  ii.  440. 

Stewart,  Dugald,  ethics,  ii.  173  ;  and  Tait 
i.  52. 

Stilling,  Heinrich  Jung,  ii.  233. 

Stoic  ethics,  ii.  171. 

Strauss,  God  no  motive  to  act,  i.  201  ; 
the  revolution  effected  by  Jesus,  ii.  424. 

Stuart,  Moses,  person  in  the  Trinity,  i. 
331  ;  tendency  of  unitarianism,  i.  389. 

Submission  to  God’s  sovereignty,  i.  542- 
547 ;  in  loving  trust  in  God,  i.  542 ;  re¬ 
joicing  that  God  reigns,  i.  543  ;  submit 
to  God,  not  to  mere  almightiness,  i. 
543  ;  not  submit  to  evil  but  prevent  or 
remove  it,  i.  544;  always,  not  merely 
in  times  of  distress,  i.  546  ;  not  putting 
one’s  self  into  God’s  hand,  i.  547. 

Suicide,  Hartmann’s  plan  for  universal, 
i.  265. 

Sully,  James,  pessimism,  i.  273. 

Summum  Bonum,  theories  of,  ii.  150,  179, 
185  ;  ultimatum,  ii.  186. 

Supererogation,  ii.  371,  515. 

Supernatural,  the,  subject  to  law,  i.  66 ; 
the  fundamental  reality,  i.  72-78  ;  line 
between  nature  and  the  supernatural, 
i.  71. 

Swedenborg,  i.  183  ;  ii.  497. 

Swift,  Dean,  ii.  390. 

Talmud,  the  Messiah,  i.  31S,  430. 

Tappan,  H.  P.,  Christian  love  defined  as 
desire,  ii.  81,  221. 

Taylor,  Rev.  Dr.  N.  W.,  God’s  right  to 
govern,  i.  526;  law  enactment  of  will, 
i-  534- 

Tennyson,  faith  and  reason,  i.  59,  60  ; 
Federation  of  the  World,  ii.  260;  Brit¬ 
ish  freedom,  ii.  535. 


Terence,  love  to  man,  ii.  349. 

Tertullian,  apparel  of  women,  i.  182 ; 
God  in  Trinity  numerically  one,  i. 
324 ;  three  modes  of  being,  i.  324 : 
believe  because  impossible,  i.  278  ; 
reply  to  calumnies  of  the  heathen,  ii. 

511* 

Theistic  realism,  i.  51-69,  160-176;  re¬ 
quired  by  science,  i.  51,  60,  163;  by 
ethics,  i.  169  ;  in  aesthetics,  i.  171  ;  also 
in  the  knowledge  of  the  good  or  well 
being,  i.  172;  skepticism  implies  it,  i. 
1 73  ;  ultimate  ground  of  belief  in  pro¬ 
gress,  i.  173;  science  discovers  it  as  a 
fact  in  the  constitution  and  evolution 
of  the  universe,  i.  174. 

Theodicy,  i.  2x0-293;  basis  in  the  fact 
that  God  is  the  absolute  Reason,  i.  210- 
222 ;  dissolves  the  dilemma  pro¬ 
pounded  by  the  atheist,  i.  210  ;  the 
dilemma  rests  on  Hedonism,  i.  212; 
theodicy  in  the  revelation  of  God  in 
Christ,  i.  213  ;  243-247  ;  misconception 
of  the  question,  i.  2 15-21 7  ;  involved 
in  the  character  of  God,  i.  217  ;  not  ne¬ 
cessary  to  know  the  precise  reason  of 
his  action,  i.  218  ;  sorrow  and  suffering, 
i.  222-231;  ii.  443;  sin,  i.  231-243; 
false  optimism,  i.  241. 

Theology,  defined,  i.  1-4 ;  lines  of  study 
in  the  schools,  i.  3,  33  ;  spirit  in  which 
it  is  to  be  studied,  i.  3,  25,  40;  wrong 
tendencies  in  the  past,  i.  4  ;  errors  in 
the  present  reaction  against  these  tend¬ 
encies,  i.  4  ;  doctrine  not  dogma,  i.  4  ; 
not  dealing  with  abstractions,  i.  7,  14 ; 
study  of  accords  with  the  spirit  and 
teaching  of  the  Bible,  i.  16 ;  essential 
to  Christian  belief,  i.  iS;  essential  to 
man  as  rational,  i.  19;  unity  and  con¬ 
tinuity  in  progressive  development,  i. 
22,  38,  59;  necessary  to  preserve  the 
purity  of  Christian  character,  in  the 
individual  and  the  kingdom  of  God,  i. 
28  ;  essential  to  effective  preaching,  i. 
31  ;  mode  of  presentation  in  the  pulpit 
distinguished  from  that  in  the  schools, 
i.  32 ;  relation  to  questions  of  our 
own  day,  i.  38,  39  ;  all  knowledge 
related  to  the  knowledge  of  God,  i. 
42. 

Theophanies,  revealing  God’s  glory  to 
Moses,  i.  498. 

Tholuck,  i.  35. 

Tiele,  Theocracy  among  the  Semites,  i. 
310- 


INDEX 


575 


Tillotson,  Archbishop,  punishment  of 
sins  of  this  life  only,  ii.  500. 

Tithes,  not  a  universal  rule,  ii.  432. 

Tolstoi,  methods,  ii.  364. 

Transcendence  and  immanence  of  God, 
i.  7S-92  ;  isolation  of  transcendence,  i. 
79;  isolation  of  immanence,  i.  So: 
present  tendency,  i.  Si  ;  immanence  in 
the  physical  system,  i.  S3  ;  implied  in 
the  revelation  of  God  as  the  Trinity,  i. 
341-344  ;  immanence  in  the  moral  or 
spiritual  system,  i.  85  ;  biblical  teach¬ 
ing,  i.  86-89;  isolation  of  either,  i.  89; 
common  Christian  belief  recognizes 
both,  i.  84,  89. 

Trinity,  biblical  representation  in  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Christ,  i.  294- 
340  ;  three  essential  elements  in  the 
doctrine,  i.  322  ;  God  numerically  and 
indivisibly  one,  i.  322-327  ;  three  eter¬ 
nal  modes  of  being,  i.  327 ;  names 
designating  them,  i.  328  ;  three  persons, 
i.328;  other  technical  terms,  i.  330; 
real  deity  of  each  in  God  the  Father, 
Son  or  Logos,  and  Holy  Spirit,  i.  332  • 
analogy  of  the  human  spirit,  i.  334; 
subordination,  i.  336;  triunity,  i.  33S  ; 
philosophical  significance,  i.  341-365  ; 
the  only  worthy  philosophical  concep¬ 
tion  of  God,  and  of  his  self-revelation, 
i.  341-356;  comprehends  in  unity  the 
two  aspects  of  God  as  absolute  Spirit, 
i.  341-347;  the  absolute  acting  in  the 
finite,  i.  342  ;  incarnation  antecedently 
probable,  i.  343 ;  the  central  fact  in 
human  history,  i.  344 ;  reveals  the  law 
of  love,  i.  344 ;  same  God  revealed  in 
the  creation  and  evolution  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  and  in  the  incarnation,  i.  344; 
God  one  in  the  two  phases  of  his  be¬ 
ing  as  absolute  Spirit,  his  three  eternal 
modes  of  being,  and  his  manifold  reve¬ 
lations  in  action,  errors  thus  corrected, 
i.  347 ;  comprehends  God  as  tran¬ 
scendent  and  immanent,  i.  348 ;  eter¬ 
nally  active  within  his  own  absolute 
being,  i.  34S  ;  philosophical  difficulties 
removed  and  errors  corrected,  i.  349 ; 
acting  in  the  universe,  not  identified 
with  it,  i.  350;  adumbrated  in  the  world- 
process  of  evolution,  physical  and 
spiritual,  i.  354 ;  historical  confirma¬ 
tion,  i.  357-365  ;  early  history  of  the 
doctrine,  i.  357  ;  Greek  philosophy,  i. 
357  ;  monotheism  apart  from  the  Trin¬ 
ity,  i.  358-363  ;  practical  significance, 


i.  366-407  ;  central  in  the  organization, 
worship,  doctrine,  and  work  of  the 
church,  i.  366 ;  gives  to  Christianity  its 
distinctive  significance  and  power,  i. 
368-372  ;  as  revelation,  i.  368  ;  as  doc¬ 
trine,  keel  of  the  ship,  i.  368  ;  as  bear¬ 
ing  on  Christian  experience  and  work, 
i.  369  ,  Christian  faith  not  suspended 
only  on  a  thread  of  tradition,  i.  371  ; 
common  belief  of  the  church  in  all 
ages,  i.  372-377  ;  testimony  of  Unitari¬ 
ans,  i.  374-377  ;  associated  with  the 
highest  spiritual  experience  and  power, 

i.  377-379;  Unitarianism  tends  to  false 
rationalism,  i.  380-394 ;  belief  in  the 
Trinity  corrects  this  and  gives  the  true 
rational  conception  of  God  and  of 
Christianity,  i.  386;  tendency  of  Uni¬ 
tarianism  exemplified  in  history,  i. 
380-394 ;  Trinitarian  conception  of 
God  meets  spiritual  and  intellectual 
wants  felt  in  all  religions  and  illumin¬ 
ates  truths  which  they  have  been  dimly 
groping  for,  i.  394-397  ;  three  forms  of 
the  idea  of  God,  monotheism,  poly¬ 
theism,  pantheism,  i.  394;  Christianity 
takes  up  the  truth  in  each,  i.  395  ; 
truth  of  the  Trinity  independent  of 
speculative  questions  respecting  it,  i. 
397-497  ;  analogy  in  the  constitution  of 
man,  i.  342. 

Trust  and  service,  i.  190;  ii.  310-334; 
trust,  ii.  31 1-323;  an  act  of  will,  ii. 
31 1  ;  presupposes  belief,  ii.  31 1.  See 
Faith;  also  Service;  unity  of  love  in 
its  two  lines  of  manifestation  in  action, 

ii.  325  ;  trust  or  faith  a  manifestation 
of  love,  ii.  326  ;  love  is  benevolence 
regulated  by  righteousness  in  acts  of 
trust  and  service,  ii.  327 ;  trust  leads 
to  exert  the  energies,  ii.  329 ;  trust 
and  service  different  manifestations  in 
action  of  the  same  love,  ii.  330  ;  faith 
and  works,  ii.  314.  332;  justification 
by  faith  is  justification  by  right  char¬ 
acter,  ii.  332 ;  acts  of  trust  and  service 
derive  their  moral  quality  as  right  or 
wrong  from  the  supreme  choice,  ii. 
333  ;  trust  and  service  to  self,  ii.  328, 
426. 

Truth,  love  of,  ii.  2S8  ;  before  truth  is 
known  it  is  candor,  ii.  2S9  ;  after  it 
is  known,  confidence  in  it,  defence  and 
propagation  of  it,  ii.  289,  1 04-107; 
veracity  and  sincerity,  ii.  294. 

Turretin,  Francis,  God’s  decree,  i.  1 46  ; 


576 


INDEX 


God  numerically  and  indivisibly  one, 
i.  322,  323  ;  person  of  Christ,  i.  401  ; 
three  modes  of  subsistence  in  the 
Trinity,  i.  327. 

Tyndall,  i.  68  ;  mystery  of  mind,  i.  168; 
utilitarianism,  ii.  169. 

Types,  basis  of,  i.  159. 

Ullman,  40. 

Ulrici,  free  will  impossible  if  man  recog¬ 
nizes  moral  law  and  obligation  consti¬ 
tutionally,  ii.  93. 

Unaided  Reason,  i.  3S6. 

Uniqueness  of  Christ  as  the  ideal  man, 
i.  440-462. 

Unitarianism,  tendency,  i.  375-394. 

Universal  religion  necessary  to  the  pro¬ 
gress  of  mankind,  ii.  376  ;  Christianity 
alone  competent  for  it,  ii.  380  ;  claims 
of  Judaism,  Mohammedism,  and 
Buddhism,  ii.  382  ;  obligation  to  preach 
Christ  to  all  nations,  ii.  383  ;  must  be 
Christianity  in  its  essential  character¬ 
istics,  not  sects,  ii.  383. 

Universe,  its  ideal  or  plan,  i.  130; 
grounded  in  reason,  i.  150;  ordered 
under  law,  i.  151  ;  its  constitution  is 
God’s  archetypal  ideal  progressively 
realized,  i.  150,  157;  a  dependent  but 
actual  reality,  i.  15 1  ;  symbolic  express¬ 
ing  thought,  i.  152;  progressively 
evolved,  i,  157  ;  always  typical  of  a 
higher  future,  i.  159;  pessimistic  con¬ 
ception  of  it  as  grounded  in  unreason, 
i.  261 ;  God’s  end  in  its  creation  and 
evolution,  i.  491-518. 

Unpardonable  sin,  ii.  449. 

Utilitarianism,  ii.  165,  536. 

Vaughan,  Silex  Scintillans,  i.  154. 

Vaux,  Clotilde  de,  ii.  227. 

Veracity,  ii.  294. 

Vicariousness  of  the  service  of  love,  ii. 
218. 

Virius ,  Roman,  ii.  226,  237. 


Vision  of  God  in  Christ  glorified,  i.  419. 

Vogue,  M.  de,  i.  90. 

Voigt,  archetypal  ideal,  i.  131. 

Volitional  action  not  moral  character,  but 
its  expression,  ii.  62. 

Volney,  self-love  theory  of  ethics,  ii.  156. 

Voltaire,  anthropomorphism,  i.  176. 

War,  ii.  259. 

Webster,  Daniel,  conscience,  i.  226  ;  elo¬ 
quence,  ii.  41 1. 

Wedgewood,  Julia,  service,  ii.  326. 

Weiss,  Christ  ceased  to  be  under  law,  ii. 

372- 

Weisse,  foreknowledge,  i.  139. 

Westcott,  Canon,  sin  and  God’s  purpose, 
i.  5 / 2> 

Western  Unitarian  Conference,  i.  393. 

White,  Rev.  Edward,  God  not  a  snow- 
king,  i.  204. 

White,  J.  Blanco,  mystery,  i.  276. 

Whittier,  faith,  i.  77  ;  God’s  love,  i. 

425- 

Wilkes,  John,  i.  26. 

Will,  freedom  of,  consistent  with  God’s 
election,  ii.  8  ;  its  freedom  and  func¬ 
tions  defined,  ii.  54-60  ;  choice  and 
volition,  ii.  56  ;  of  man  cannot  be 
changed  to  a  new  choice  by  God’s  al¬ 
mighty  power,  ii.  11  ;  freedom  of  not 
lost  in  the  Fall,  ii.  484  ;  of  man  in 
Adam,  ii.  14 ;  attributes  of  God  as 
will,  i.  177-194;  God’s  will  not  capri¬ 
cious  almightiness  unregulated  by  rea¬ 
son,  i.  134,  146. 

Witness  of  the  Spirit,  i.  387. 

Wordsworth,  Prebendary,  love  identified 
with  desire,  ii.  221. 

Wordsworth,  William,  ode  to  duty,  ii. 
469  ;  Christian  heroes,  ii.  549. 

Worldliness,  ii.  209. 

Yates,  reply  to  Wardlaw,  i.  280. 

Young,  Prof.,  heat  of  the  sun,  ii.  36. 

Young,  Edward,  Hedonism,  ii.  164. 


